


Attainathon

by TheSigyn



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: BDSM, F/M, Force-Play, blood-play
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-22 10:27:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 47,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9604010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSigyn/pseuds/TheSigyn
Summary: Buffy looked at Spike and frowned. “Did... we just agree to get married?”





	1. Ring

**Author's Note:**

> Sigyn wrote Fluff! What is the world coming to...? Oh dear. There is no plot but the fluff! Let's see how long I can keep the Fluffy Spuffy Smutty Stuff up.
> 
> This is set in a post NFA world which is almost, but not quite, comic canon (because I do not hold with the comics as quite canon.) I have taken elements from Buffy season 10, ruthlessly slashed anything I did not like, and moved it on a few years. Most everything important is revealed in the text, but if you want an early primer:
> 
> San Francisco is as good a home base as any. Everyone does live in the same apartment building.
> 
> Whether Giles is grown or in the shape of a child will not be discussed. Dawn and Xander’s relationship status, ditto. They are not currently together, and there will be no reference to their past. Dawn’s in college. Xander does construction. If Willow has a job beyond “witch” I don’t care. She is not dating anyone.
> 
> Any characters who I deem to be alive will gladly show up, without reference to their supposed demise or circumstance in the comic series.
> 
> There was absolutely no cosmic Bangel space sex resulting in magical universe rape-babies. This never, ever, ever happened. Ever.
> 
> Spike and Buffy have been dating a long time, and there is no question about their relationship. (My own headcanon puts this fic after my stories Immortal and Pet, which should tell my regular readers something.) Like the comics, Spike has a job with the police, because I like him having money. Buffy mostly works as a slayer trainer and bad-demon slayer, like in season seven canon. Money is thus very tight for her. Dawn, I suspect, has student loans. 
> 
> I also like the idea that the general populous knows about demons, slayers, and magic, because frankly I always found the idea that anyone was able to keep that quiet in the Buffyverse utterly incredible.
> 
> In short, if you really love the comics, then this could be season 10 comic canon if you squint, but otherwise, it’s just Buffyverse.  
> Beautiful Banners by Safire and nmcil! Thanks to ZabJade and bewildered for excellent beta work!

 

 

  
    “Why did we decide to do this again?”

    “Because we both got sick of listening to Dawn bitch about it,” Spike said. “We could just elope.”

    “Abscond in the middle of the night and have it done in Vegas,” Buffy suggested.

    “Or by some demon priest in a pinch. What’s D’Hoffryn doing these days?”

    “Probably vengeancing someone. Oh! Or we could do it in the park, under the trees. You know, indirect sunlight only.”

    “Enjoy your Honeymoon,” Spike said with a grin.

    “As Mr. and Mrs. Big-Pile-Of-Dust,” Buffy added.

    Spike slid onto the couch beside her and looked at the checklist. There was actually a checklist, but it had almost nothing on it. WEDDING PLANS it said at the top, and then in a singular show of sarcasm Buffy had added (WTF!?!) underneath. There was a line about Dress (probably not white. Do laundry.) Then something about Cake. (Sarah-Lee cheesecake. Strawberry?) Venue. (Downstairs hallway?) She was dithering over the line that said, “Officiated by...”

    None of it seemed very enthusiastic.

    “Or we could just forget the whole thing,” Spike said quietly.

    Buffy threw the paper down on the coffee table and tucked her feet under her. “It’s just stupid. We’ve done just fine without that piece of paper. Why do we need one now?”

    “Legal reasons,” he said. “Dawn and Giles are right. Once we start buying property, things get complicated if one of us dies.”

    Buffy snuggled up under his arm. “I don’t like thinking that way.”

    “Me either.”

    “It just seems dumb,” Buffy said. “I mean, how the hell am I supposed to introduce you if we’re married? Hi, here’s my beloved vampire husband, don’t worry, he hasn’t eaten people in years.”

    “And here’s my bitchy slayer wife,” Spike added. “Yeah, I know, supposed to be dead and passed on the mantle, but she kinda skipped the dead part, ‘cause she’s lazy as hell, and just got on with handing the power to other poor innocent bints. Selfish bitch.”

    He’d been trying to get her to hit him playfully, which she would usually do when he was clearly and intentionally being an ass by saying things he obviously didn’t mean. But she didn’t. She just stayed snuggled up against his chest, looking glum.

    “Hey,” he said. “What is it?”

    “I don’t know,” Buffy said. “Something about getting married makes this whole thing between you and me just seem too... ridiculous. Like melodramatic and silly.”

    Spike glanced down at the note pad. “Is that why you’re planning the wedding as if it were a garage sale?” He reached up and gently touched her lip with his thumb. “You don’t even want a new dress, pet?”

    “Like I can afford a party gown, let alone a wedding dress.”

    “I’ve some dosh squirreled away, if you want a party, love,” Spike said. “That’s not the issue. Do you want to get married, or don’t you?”

    “Do you?”

    “Was asking you.”

    Buffy sighed and pulled away. “I don’t know. Weddings... it just seems so dumb.”

    “How come?”

    Buffy shrugged. “When I was little I had this fairy tale idea of getting married, and Daddy walking me down the aisle, and Mom crying and stuff. And then big divorce happens, so. Already know that wedding doesn’t mean Happy Ever After. When I was in highschool I still tried to cling on to some of that fairy tale, but, I mean that got totally...” she growled with a gesture of frustration.

    “Angelused?”

    “Yeah,” Buffy said. “After that I just threw the whole idea out. I mean, I was destined to die, for one. And then it seemed so ridiculous after the whole Willow-Spell thing with you, and then Riley’s idea of marriage seemed like slavery for both parties, though... I couldn’t tell if he thought that was a good thing or a bad thing. Huh, must have decided he was pro-marriage what with Sam and all, even with his slavery concept. And then the whole fairy tale aspect of it got totally destroyed by watching Anya and Xander and their little dreams go up in smoke even _before_ Xander dropped her at the altar. I mean, family fights and stupid venue expenses and radioactive green cocktail dresses? Just slay me now!”

    Spike’s voice was very soft. “I thought you looked pretty.”

    “I’d have been happier with the burlap and blood larvae. That color was terrible with my skin tone.”

    “You looked happy,” Spike said. “I hadn’t seen that in a while.”

    He sounded sad, and Buffy looked up at him. That had been a terrible time for both of them.... “Sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

    Spike shrugged. “It’s part of how you’re thinking. Go on.”

    “It’s just that I realized how stupid it all was. I mean, I know I was in a pretty dark place, but I remembered thinking... this is making them crazy. Wouldn’t they have had more fun if the whole thing was like their engagement party? Just us, hanging out at home, chips and dip and yay for you two.”

    “I... kinda missed that party, love.”

    Buffy frowned. “You...?”

    “Weren’t invited, remember? Wasn’t really part of the team.”

    “I always felt like you were. I mean, I just assumed...”

    Spike made a bit of a rueful face. “Why you never invited me to the parties either, huh? Just assumed I was already there?”

    Buffy opened her mouth, and then closed it again, troubled. Something was hovering over their heads, and it hadn’t landed yet.

    This engagement hadn’t been sparked by a major romantic interlude. Spike hadn’t proposed to her. She hadn’t offered to marry him. There was a dojo that had opened up which Spike had wanted to buy, as a good place to help train potential slayers and other demon fighters, and he’d tapped Buffy for things like the co-lease and collateral, and they’d both gotten hyper-involved in the project. Then Dawn had pointed out it would just be a lot better if they were married rather than just dating, and like hadn’t they been dating for- _ever_ and wasn’t it time they just made it official already? Then Giles had chimed in saying it would make some legal aspects much easier, what with taxes and finances and legal records and inheritance, and Spike and Buffy had found themselves agreeing without much thought. It was as if the word “spousal” had just been one more word, along with collateral, capital, income, financial, and all the other legalese.

    It wasn’t until they’d gotten to the apartment an hour ago that Buffy had looked at Spike and frowned. “Did... we just agree to get married?”

    “Looks like.”

    They’d stared at each other for a long moment, mutual incredulity on their faces. Then Spike had gone off for a shower, and Buffy had had a minor panic attack in the kitchen. The panic attack had resulted in the checklist on the coffee table.

    Spike had gone into the shower because he needed some alone time. Part of him wanted to dance with joy, throw the slayer into the air and start shouting about the proposal from the bloody rooftop. Another part was gibbering in terror, because if there was one thing that would make fate look too hard at them it was a proposed wedding with marital-bliss in the offing. And another part was feeling hurt, because there was Buffy, technically his fiancee, and... she did not look happy about it.

    Didn’t she love him?

    Of course she did, he knew she did, but there was always that stupid prat in the corner of his mind telling him he was beneath her, wasn’t he?

    So he’d stood under the hot water for long, long minutes, biting at his lips and trying to calm the scared cats in his chest that were clawing their way up his heart. (Hm... interesting analogy.... Nah. Probably not worth saving. It would sound dumb in a poem.)

    He’d come back out to find Buffy still not entirely thrilled by the marriage concept.

    Which hadn’t calmed the cats any. They were starting to sharpen their claws again.

    Buffy stared at Spike for a long moment, considering him. Parties. Inclusion. Acceptance. She almost had it. “Spike? Did _you_ want a big party?”

    He shrugged. “Not if you don’t.”

    “That wasn’t what I asked.”

    He shook his head. “Parties and white weddings don’t matter to me, love. That’s not the big deal for me.”

    If _that_ wasn’t the big deal.... “You really want to get married, don’t you,” Buffy realized. She felt like an idiot even as she said the words aloud. She should have already known this.

    He shrugged again. “Not if you don’t.”

    “Spike stop... prevaricating, just tell me. Is this a big deal to you?”

    Spike looked at her for a long moment, and then closed his eyes, unable to meet her gaze. “What do you want me to say, Buffy? You know I’m always of four minds about anything.” He tilted his head back with a sigh. “You say there’s this little girl in you who wanted a big wedding, yeah? And then there’s this grown-up slayer who saw it all go bad, and gave it up.”

    “Yeah.”

    “Well, there’s this really madly romantic Victorian poet sitting here whose entire life, like a sodding Jane Austen novel, was about who he was going to marry one day. And there’s the really vicious vampire who Angelus taught to attack weddings, because the brutality mixed with the irony made it that much more evil, yeah? And then there’s the slayer of slayers who devoted his entire existence to a madwoman who carried on with any bloody creature that looked her direction and dropped him the moment things didn’t go just her way, so my faith in love-everlasting is pretty much nil. And then there’s me–”

    He cut himself off, and Buffy waited a moment, until she realized he couldn’t speak. Emotion – whatever it was – had kinda taken over. She shifted on the couch and climbed up onto his lap, straddling him. Then she kissed him, gently, massaging his lips with hers, tasting the cool, vampiric flesh.

    He was passive at first, and then slowly opened up, tasting her, caressing her with his kiss. His arms snaked around her and he lightly traced along her back, humming a little as the kiss calmed the frightened cats and started up this little warm purring of happiness and contentment and _Buffy_ , and yeah, maybe the cats thing was a pretty damn good analogy after all, because Buffy and kittens and warm and he pulled her a little closer, and hot damn, he loved this woman. The happy contentment started to slide from HappyKissingBuffy to WantingToBeShaggingBuffy, and he moved his pelvis a little to inform her of this as he pulled her hips tighter against him.

    Buffy hummed, and finished up her kiss lingeringly, leaving his lips feeling as if they’d just given hers a heartfelt goodbye. He blinked his eyes back open and found her gazing at him softly. “What about _you_?” she whispered.

    He stared into her green eyes. “I just love you,” he whispered. “I love you, I love you so much. Do I want to marry you, and celebrate it, and tell every bugger in the world how lucky I am, and how happy you make me, and what an amazing woman you are? Yeah.” He brushed a strand of hair out of her face. “But do I ever want to do anything that makes you uncomfortable, or makes this... miracle of you and me look foolish or trite or anything smaller than what it is?” He pulled in close and held her. “God, no,” he whispered in her ear.

    He kissed her jaw a few times and then looked at her, an earnest little frown between his eyes. “I want _you_ , slayer. I want to hold you at night and have you bitch at me in the morning and piss you off by leaving my towels on the floor, and I want to shag you and kiss you and draw you a bath and listen to you laugh on the phone, and brush out your hair and rub your shoulders or your feet and just worship you. If get to do that... if I get to spend the rest of my existence, or your existence, if I get a life with you as my partner, in every sense of the word... I’m the happiest sodding man there is. If marrying you makes that firmer, or more powerful... then yes, I want it. If it makes it silly or discomfiting to you, I don’t want it at all.” He kissed her nose. “I just want you.”

    Buffy grinned. “Did you just say _discomfiting_?”

    Spike laughed, his head thrown back.  “Sod a dog, Buffy, what kind of a wedding do you want?”

    Buffy sighed. If someone had asked her the day before, she’d have said she didn’t want one. Now, with one staring her in the face (with perfectly sensible, logical reasons behind it, of course) she wasn’t sure she didn’t want a real wedding, after all. The grocery-store cheesecake and the downstairs hallway in the apartment building had been like a compromise or something. But she’d finally remembered, she wasn’t just marrying a leather-clad punk-rock-rebel with a blood fixation and a bad temper. She was marrying Spike, who was also William the poet, and she had her fairy tale Victorian prince right underneath her spread legs (and she was becoming more aware of that fact every second.) “I’m not sure,” she said, wiggling her hips. She could feel his erection full against the seam of her pants. “I mean... I can tell you what I _don’t_ want.”

    Spike slid his hands down her hips and along her buttocks, holding her firmly against him. “What don’t you want, then.”

    “I don’t want to go crazy,” she said. “I don’t want the _wedding_ to become more important than what we are, like what happened with Anya and Xander. I mean, I honestly think that if she’d just put down the radioactive bridesmaids and the Bring In The Whole Demonic Quadrant As Guests shit that Xander wouldn’t have freaked out, and they could have had their... happy enough marriage.”

    “Yeah,” Spike said. “Often thought the same thing. Never dared say it to her, though, even when we were both drunk off our asses.”

    “I don’t want to talk about yours and Anya’s drunk asses.”

    “Hey, asses,” Spike said. “We could go with donkey blood for the reception.”

    “Are we having a reception?”

    “Dunno,” Spike said. “What do you think?”

    “I think that’s going to depend on what kind of wedding we want.”

    Spike bent forward and nibbled on her neck. “We did this once before,” he breathed heavy into her ear, causing her whole body to tingle. “We could just go with those plans.”

    “Like you remember them all.”

    Spike just nibbled at her earlobe and then nuzzled at her throat.

    “Oh my god, seriously, Spike? You remember them all?”

    Spike pulled away and gazed at her. “I didn’t have much else to fill my head with at the time, pet. Apart from a highly suspect government chip. No hunting, no blood, no girl. Can you blame me for indulging in some highly racy fantasies about me and the slayer fueled by the memories of a particularly potent spell?”

    Since she had indulged in a few of those fantasies herself, she couldn’t. “Thought you hated me, though.”

    “Doesn’t mean I didn’t want to shag while I killed you,” Spike said with a grin. He gently lifted one hand and pulled down the edge of her shirt, peering slightly at her cleavage. “Took another eight months before I, ah... admitted I was smitten, though.” He touched her sternum with one finger, little lightning bolts of sensation radiating out from his fingertip as he traced it down between her breasts.

    “You are a sick–” Buffy gasped “–sick vampire, and I am – um – deeply depraved – ah! – to be willing to listen to your wicked fantasies.”

    “Like putting you in a wedding dress that gives me access to these?” he said, sliding his hand beneath one breast. Her shirt pulled against the back of her neck, and Buffy quickly unbuttoned the top two buttons to allow Spike better access.

    “Is that one of your fantasies?”

    “Oh, yeah,” Spike said. He bent forward and put his mouth to her cleavage, then followed up along her collarbone, his cool, moist tongue leaving a trail of cold along her flesh that made her shiver. “And open down the back,” he murmured against her before he began to nibble at her, “so that when I put my hands on you,” he bit rather hard, “there’s nothing between you... and my wicked touch.” He bit hard enough to leave dents, though it was his human teeth, so only dents.

    Buffy groaned, and her hips bucked. She felt his cock twitch. “Didn’t you say something about royal icing, and a spun sugar cake top?”

    “Couldn’t find a Victorian pastry chef in Sunnydale, love,” Spike said into her throat. “There was no way we’d get one in time, and... ah... I seem to recall us being in,” he kissed and bit at her passionately, “a bit of a hurry,” he finished, then returned to his ministrations on her neck.

    “Well, San Francisco,” Buffy said. “I think... bit of a... mm... bigger pool to... ahh!... choose from.” She scratched her fingers down his back, and then decided this clothed thing was a waste of perfectly good foreplay, and dragged his shirt over his head. He had to stop kissing her for her to do that, which was a crime, but fortunately Spike regretted all of his crimes and always sought to make amends where he could, and thus wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against his bare chest, and that made up for it.

    “Better dressmakers, too,” Spike said. “I think we could find something scandalous to dress you in.”

    “Maybe,” Buffy said. “If... I can dress you all scandalous, too.”

    “What do you think is scandalous?” Spike said, and he slid down off the couch, shoving the coffee table with Buffy’s tepid wedding plans on it halfway across the room.

    “I dunno,” Buffy said, reaching for his belt. “Maybe assless chaps and a silk tie.”

    Spike laughed. “Why don’t we just put me in the backless wedding dress, and have you in the assless chaps.” He squeezed her ass and lifted his hips, bucking her slightly into the air.

    Buffy giggled as she nearly lost her balance and grabbed his hair, pulling herself back to him for a kiss. He hummed into her mouth. “Well, we’re not in so much of a hurry this time,” Buffy said. She sat up on her knees so she could unzip her jeans. She really should wear skirts more often, it made the spontaneous sex more spontaneous. Dragging pants off really slowed things down – at least Spike could get away with just unzipping lots of the time.

    “Aren’t we?” Spike said. “I thought we had a lease to sign, and the sooner for that the better.”

    Buffy stopped and looked down at him. “You want to do this quickly?”

    “I don’t want to give fate a chance to bugger us.”

    Buffy frowned. “That’s a point. I hadn’t thought of that.” She pulled away, her passion cooling, but she knew it wouldn’t stay cool for long, so she used the opportunity to pull down her jeans. “How fast? I know we were planning on less than a week in Sunnydale.”

    “I don’t think we need to go that far,” Spike said. “There’s no spell egging us on this time, is there?”

    Buffy glared at him, mocking. “I think I might have noticed.”

    “Right, but, you know, you escaped because you’re the slayer. Some kind of natural immunity.”

    “Right. Totally immune to sexy vampires,” Buffy said, pulling her shirt over her head. “They don’t affect me at all.”

    “Oh, yeah,” Spike said, reaching out for her. “I could tell. Not interested in the least.”

    “Oh, of course not,” Buffy said, letting her back arch as he caressed her breasts. “Totally hate you. Don’t want you at all. Never gonna happen. Why are your pants still on?”

    “Sorry, love,” Spike said, working to rectify that situation. “Had more important things to think about.” He buried his head in her chest the moment he had his pants half off and began suckling and licking and nibbling on her nipple.

    Buffy gasped, more than a bit of a moan sneaking into it. “Which is why,” Spike said into her flesh, “you’re dry as a bone down here.” He slid his hand into her slit, one finger gently fingering her entrance. Buffy danced, trying to slide her (absolutely sopping) self over his clever finger, but he didn’t quite let her. “Tell me you want it,” he whispered. “Make me believe you.”

    “Spike, if you don’t fuck me soon I’m going to throttle you.”

    Spike laughed. “That works.”

    Buffy climbed over him and lowered herself onto his already straining cock. He tilted his head back onto the couch and slid down so he was half recumbent, his hands sliding up and down her warm flesh. He lay back and watched her dance over him for a moment. “You are so...” he trailed off. She was. So. So much so. So beautiful, so strong, so powerful, so much fun, so kind, so sweet, such a bitch. She was so. “When we’re done with this, I’m going to ask you to marry me properly,” he announced. “You okay with that?”

    “Yeah,” Buffy whispered, flexing herself over him. “I think I could survive it.”

    “Good,” Spike said. He took her hands and put them around his throat, inviting her to throttle him anyway. “Hard.”

    Buffy smiled, and squeezed. She didn’t have to worry about possibly strangling him, because he was a vampire, but there was actually a big difference between this erotic stuff they did and anything violent. He liked it. She liked things he liked. She didn’t even have to do much before he bit his lip and tilted his head back, and bucked and strained under her, and she loosened a little (because she knew it was better that way) and ground atop him hard. And yeah, this wasn’t the full-on-vampire-and-Buffy-sex-buffet that she and Spike could indulge in when they had ample time and ability to prepare first, but this spontaneous stuff was fantastic, and it had been ever since they’d decided to just give up and stop pretending they were living in different apartments. Technically Buffy still had a room with Dawn and Willow. That was usually where she and Spike ate. In reality... she lived here with Spike. Had done for... god, she’d stopped counting a long time ago.

    They were already living together. They were already devoted. She knew him inside and out. He’d learned every inch of her from her body through to her soul. There was no one and nothing that could ever come between them, not even themselves. What the fuck did they have to get married for?

    “I want you to have your Victorian sugar cake,” Buffy whispered.

    “I want you to have your sexy party dress.”

    “I want to marry you.”

    Spike smiled. “Me, too.”

    “You can’t. I get first dibs. And I don’t share my vampire with anyone, not even you.”

    Spike chuckled. “He’s all yours, love,” he said low. “Body and soul.”

    Buffy thrust and grunted atop him, and he growled in her ear, because he knew it turned her on even more, and she cried out, convulsing over him with pleasure. Spike took her up then and spread her down on the carpet as he kissed her, and kissed her, her lips, her cheeks, her jaw, her throat, and then back up to her lips. “How about day fourteen?” he whispered into her ear.

    Oh. _That_ day. “That’s in like three weeks.”

    “We can be ready by then. I don’t think we need to have anything much custom made.”

    “Your cake.”

    “That will be the hardest bit,” Spike said. “I’ll look around.”

    “I should probably find rings. And I’ll look into the legal bit. Oh, hey, how are we supposed to... I mean, do you even exist?”

    “Wolfram and Hart gave me a filed existence when I worked with Angel,” Spike said. “I’m pretty sure State of California can send me a copy of that bogus birth certificate if I ask. Shouldn’t be an issue.”

    “Okay,” Buffy said. “I don’t know if you need to present a birth certificate or anything. Just...”

    “We’ll get it sorted tomorrow, love,” Spike said. He kissed her again. “Meantime.” He sat up and pulled the soft afghan off the back of the couch, covering her decently. Then he hitched up his pants and walked off.

    “What are you doing?”

    “Getting something,” Spike said. He went into the bedroom for a moment, and Buffy could hear him rummaging around. A bit later he slipped into the kitchen, then finally came back out with a couple of glasses and a black bottle of wine, which he opened up and poured for her. It was rich, dark red.

    “What is that?”

    “Hungarian Egri Bikavér,” Spike said. “I’d have poured us some champagne, but this is what I had. I had it saved up for Halloween. You know, when _nothing is supposed to happen,_ ” he said, as if tempting fate.

    Buffy giggled and took the glass he proffered. “I didn’t think Hungary was known for its fine wines,” Buffy joked.

    “It’s known for this one,” Spike said. “Bull’s blood, it’s called.” Buffy sipped it. It was strong, earthy, and far heavier than the wines she usually preferred, and for some reason she really liked it. Spike knelt down before her and gently caressed her mussed hair. “Buffy Summers, will you marry me?”

    Buffy smiled. “It’s not very sudden, is it.”

    And to Buffy’s utter surprise, Spike held out a ring. It... wasn’t the same ring as that one he’d given her in Sunnydale, the silver skull that had meant so much and so little. That one had been destroyed when Sunnydale was. When Spike had sacrificed himself and become a true champion. This was of pale gold, molded like a bunch of leaves, and the setting was several small stones in the shape of a flower. They were rubies. The cut was antique. “Spike...”

    “Say yes,” he said, clearly self-mocking, but she could read the love in his eyes all the same. “And make me the happiest man on earth.”

    “Spike, where did you get that?”

    Spike stopped holding the ring out to her and looked down at it, shy. “I’d love to say it was me mum’s,” he said. “It’s not. I saw it in a pawn shop one day in LA. Back when I was still working with Wolfram and Hart. It kinda looked like one of hers did. That one was sapphire. I saw it, and put it out of my head, and then went back and looked at it again, and then left without it. I did that about six times. Then Angel finally gave me a paycheck, and I was... sliding it into my pocket, and...” He shrugged. “Maker’s mark says it was made in 1853. Year I was born,” he added softly. He held the ring out to her again. “Would you wear it? Or would it get in the way of the slaying?”

    Buffy felt unexpectedly choked up. Which was stupid. She reached out and gently touched the lovely thing. Spike was just keeping a random ring around, on the off chance...? That was really what it seemed like. Yeah, it reminded him of his mum, but... there seemed to be more to it than that.

    It looked really delicate.

    “Um. If it breaks... or I lose it... you know it’s just a ring, right?” she said. “I can’t seem to keep anything intact, I mean... if the ring breaks, you know we wouldn’t be.... I mean we’re stronger than that thing.”

    “It’s just a ring,” he said. “Just a piece of paper. I’m not dumb enough to throw this away ‘cause we have a violent life, Buffy.”

    “Then... then I guess.” She realized she was sounding ambivalent again. She wasn’t, not about Spike. Just the stupid wedding. She grabbed Spike’s hand and pulled him close to her, staring into his eyes. “We’ll do it,” she said. “We’ll do the whole stupid thing, the white dress and the rings and the pretty cake and the party. I’m just scared it’ll ruin stuff.”

    “How about we make a deal,” Spike said. “The second all the trimmings quit being fun, we stop. We fall back on your cheesecake and clean laundry and whatever we already have done.”

    Buffy grinned. “Deal! Where’s my ring?”

    Spike took her hand and slid the engagement ring onto it. Then he carried her to bed, where he kissed her over and over again, and compared her hair to the gold of the ring, and her blood to rubies, and then said something about angry cats and claws in his heart, and then seemed to feel self-conscious and told her to forget that bit.

    Buffy chuckled. “Tell me a poem,” she whispered.

    “Mine are all rubbish, love.”

    She disagreed, (not that she was any professional poetry critic or anything) but she didn’t feel like pressing him tonight. “Then tell me someone else’s.”

    “Mm.” He thought a moment. Sometimes he’d come up with Sex Pistols lyrics, which in his voice was still sexy as all hell, but he was in a softer mood tonight.

_There be none of Beauty's daughters_  
_With a magic like Thee;_  
_And like music on the waters_  
_Is thy sweet voice to me._

    Buffy snuggled down to listen to Spike-voice and Byron, and thought herself the luckiest damn girl ever.

_So the spirit bows before thee_  
_To listen and adore thee;_  
_With a full but soft emotion,_  
_Like the swell of Summer's ocean._

    Buffy wanted to say something about the swelling and the wetness of Summers’ ocean, but she was already half asleep, and more sex would have been nice, but would have required movement, and before she’d decided whether or not waking up fully was worth it for more sex, the option of being awake had already faded.

    Spike stayed awake, looking at his ring on Buffy Summers’ strong hand. Good god... something had to go wrong. There was absolutely no way he could possibly be this lucky.

   _Don’t question it, William,_ he said to himself. _Like when she kissed you, and when she took you, and when she said she loved you. When you question it, you lose it. Just let it be._

    Spike snuggled in beside her, and let it be.

 


	2. Dress

 

   “I think I got a lead on your cake,” Dawn said.

   “Hm?” Buffy looked up, still blurry eyed. Dawn had made coffee, and she put a cup in front of the half-asleep Buffy, who promptly made it lukewarm with cream and chocolate syrup. The coffee was often cold. Slaying most of the night meant Buffy frequently didn’t get up until at least eleven. Usually Dawn was at class, but she didn’t have a course that day.

   “I have a lead on your cake. My friend Gretchen is in culinary arts, and she says there’s this awesome baker on the east side, who has these actual Victorian recipes and stuff. She does wedding cakes.”

   “Do you know the name?”

   “Sweet Fantasy,” Dawn said. “I found the number for you.” She shoved a piece of paper with a number scrawled on it in front of Buffy. Buffy frowned at it. Her eyes wouldn’t focus. “I called it already,” she said. “They opened about an hour ago. She said she’d be willing to set up a taste test for you, if you were really serious.”

   “Can she do spun sugar?”

   “And detailed sugar molds and everything,” Dawn said. “She specializes in the old recipes, though. If you call she’ll set up an appointment.”

   “Does she do after dark?”

   “I think she would,” Dawn said. “She said business was slow lately, so she wasn’t too busy, which I think means she’s a little strapped for cash. How much are you willing to spend?”

   “Whatever Spike has. I think he’d be willing to go into debt for all this, though he’s keeping quiet on how much he has saved. It’s not too much, I know, ‘cause we need the down payment for the dojo, but that’s not what he calls his _liquid assets_ , which... I don’t know what that means.”

   “Probably means his poker money,” Dawn said with a laugh. “The marriage license come through okay?”

   “Yeah, we got it yesterday. I think. It is conceivably possible that I only _think_ it was yesterday, and we spent a thousand years in a windowless fluorescent-lit hell dimension where Barry Manilow was sent to suffer through all eternity for his sins.”

   “Manilow?”

   “Yeah. They must have had a mix on repeat or something. I lost track of how many times we heard the whole set, over and over. At one point Spike said if he had to hear one more muzak version of Mandy he was going to say to hell with the soul, give up on the whole redemption shtick, and start snapping necks.”

   Dawn laughed.

   “Not funny, I was about ready to join him.”

   “It can see how it would be difficult to tell the difference between an afternoon at the county clerk’s office, and an eternity in a hell dimension,” Dawn said. “But you endured?”

   “Not without trauma. Spike said it was a damn good thing I wasn’t marrying some other vampire he could name, or I’d probably have to suffer that at the reception.” Buffy shuddered.

   “Well, that _coupled_ with Wind Beneath My Wings...” Dawn taunted.

   “Oh, stop it,” Buffy said. “Just because I loved that song when I was a teenager.”

   “Not so long ago.”

   “Shut. Up.”

   Dawn realized grumpy morning slayer hadn’t finished her coffee yet and sat back down on the couch to do some of her college reading.

   Buffy was on the phone to the confectioners when Spike slid in, still warm and wet from the shower, with a big mug of blood in his hand. “You guys got any weetabix? We’re out in the other kitchen.”

   “Check above the microwave,” Dawn said absently. “But no blood in the sink!”

   “I’m telling you, it’s not the blood that makes it clog,” Spike said. “There’s something wrong with your garbage disposal.”

   “Xander keeps saying it’s you.”

   “And I’m telling you, that’s impossible! He’s just trying to get under my skin.”

   “And that’s my job,” Buffy said, sliding her hand along Spike’s waist.

   “Ew. More information than I needed to know, Buffy,” Dawn said, and Buffy grinned. So Dawn was finally old enough to understand to just which skin she was referring. About time!

   “Oh, oh, yeah, I’m still here,” Buffy said on the phone. “Yeah, we’re really interested, particularly if you can do... what were they again? Bird’s nests?”

   “Spun sugar,” Spike said. “You want me to talk to her?”

   “Yeah.”

   Spike took the phone started talking about confectioner’s sugar and chiffon cake and royal icing and Buffy grabbed her coffee cup, and then balked when she realized she’d grabbed Spike’s instead, and he silently traded cups with her, and then poured some weetabix into his cup, and it was simple, every day, domestic chaos, which was exactly what Spike wanted every day to be for the rest of his unlife.

   “So, Thursday night, then?” Spike confirmed to the baker, a woman called Beatrice MacNamara.

   “Absolutely. I can let you taste some samples, and show you my portfolio. I’m really proud of my antique recipes. They’re one hundred percent accurate!”

   “We’ll see about that,” Spike said. “Thanks for the late appointment, I have an eccentric work schedule.”

   “Oh, no, that happens all the time. It’ll be great to see you both! Congratulations on your engagement!”

   “Thanks, pet,” Spike said. “See you Thursday.” He hung up the phone. “We have our cake date.”

   Buffy grinned up at him. “Excellent. And another date this afternoon at the bridal shop.”

   “Ooh,” Spike said, sliding his arm around Buffy’s waist. He pulled her against him. “Dress shopping.”

   “Please!” Dawn said from the couch. “Still here, you know!”

   Spike and Buffy both rolled their eyes, but released each other. If it had been Xander or Willow, they probably would have just kept going.

***

   Spike had to dodge from the sewer entrance to the back door of the bridal shop, where Buffy was waiting for him. He took his coat off from over his head, shaking the smoke from his hair and hands. “Took you long enough, pet,” he muttered, beating out smolders. “I must have poked my head out that manhole four times before you finally...”

   He trailed off as he saw why Buffy had taken so long to open the back door. She’d already put on her first dress. He stared dumbfounded for a long, long moment.

   “Wow.”

   The first dress Buffy had chosen to put on was a tight blue-white satin number, which showed off all her curves, which of course she had in all the right places. It had a low décolletage, _and_ a low back, and despite the long tight skirt, it revealed a lot of skin. “What do you think?”

   Spike took a moment to find his voice. “Fetching,” he finally managed. It was an understatement. Her look had _fetched_ quite a bit of his anatomy, and now that she was slinking out toward the mirrors in the center of the shop, he followed her as if she’d tied a leash to his cock, and was dragging him.

   The proprietor of the shop looked a little askance as Spike (still smoking just a little) followed Buffy out of the back room. “Oh, it’s okay,” Buffy said, smiling her most charming Valley Girl smile at the woman. “He’s the money.”

   “Ah,” the shop girl said, and went to a rack which had a selection of dresses already hung up waiting for them. “Are you sure you don’t need help with any of these?”

   “He’ll help me,” Buffy said. “We don’t believe it’s bad luck.”

   “Well, just so you know, you are, of course, liable for any... ah... _damages_ to the dresses that might take place during fittings.”

   “Got that,” Spike said, without taking his eyes off Buffy in her blue-white sheath. “Here.” He reached into his wallet and handed the girl a bill – he thought it was a C-note, but he couldn’t be bothered to look. “Down payment, earnest money, whatever. We’re buying something today.”

   “Oh.” The woman sounded considerably less disapproving. “Well, in that case. Do you need–?”

   “We’re good. Thanks. Leave us to it.”

   “Ah. All right, then.” She walked away, finally, leaving Spike with a satin sheathed Buffy to stare at.

   “I picked out a bunch,” Buffy said. “Figured I’d start with this one, but... I don’t know.” She looked at herself in the three-way mirror, trying to see every angle. “I can’t really move in this skirt. I feel like a pupa or something.”

   “Try,” Spike said, his voice husky.

   “What?”

   “Try,” he said. “Move. Bend.” _God, please, Buffy, fucking dance in that thing!_

   Buffy grinned, a smile more wicked and more heartfelt than the Valley Girl she’d turned on the (thank god) otherwise engaged shop girl, who seemed to be doing some alterations in an alcove to the side. She could see everything, but probably couldn’t hear if he kept his voice down. Which meant he had to behave himself, but only to an extent.

   “Bend?” Buffy said. She bent at the hips, and stretched her arm down her leg. “Hm. I don’t know. See how it gets so tight across the back there?”

   Spike saw.

   “And like, when I move my hips like so,” Buffy said, and Spike’s nostrils flared as she moved her hips like so. “I mean, it’s pretty, but... I just can’t really take a decent step.”

   Spike’s blood was somewhere other than his brain, so it took him a moment to understand what she meant. “You mean it’s too hard to spread your legs in that?” He swallowed. “That would be a tragedy.”

   “Yeah. What if we get demon-baited? I’ve had bad luck with demons at fancy parties. But I love the material. It’s so silky, feel.”

   Spike had no problem obeying that instruction, and his hand reached out, and somehow utterly failed to land on the blue-white satin, but instead somehow slid around to the small of her back, where the satin revealed her warm, soft skin, and _bugger,_ the shop girl was looking up from her alterations, so Spike couldn’t push Buffy against the mirrors and slide the skirt up around her hips and have her _right then and there!_

   “Very silky,” he said low.

   Buffy looked up at him from under hooded lids. “That’s not the dress.”

   “In’t it?” He sounded genuinely surprised.

   “No.” Buffy took his other hand and placed it on her hip, this time on the silk. “See. That’s the dress.”

   “Right,” he said, his hand curving along her silk-sheathed hip bone. He caressed her through the satin, his hands sliding easily over the slippery material, making her grunt low. “It is smooth.”

   “Yeah,” Buffy said. “But I don’t think... it’s gonna be my wedding dress. Would you help me take this off?”

   “You’re kidding, right?”

   Buffy smiled, and Spike swallowed. “Changing room’s right over here,” she said. She pulled another dress from the rack and led Spike across to the changing booth. He almost pushed her inside it, and she’d dropped the second dress and he had her pressed against the wall before the door was closed. He slipped it closed with his foot as he pushed against her, his cock a powerful bulge between them. Buffy could feel it against her clit through the smooth satin, and had to bite her lips to keep from crying out.

   “Buffy,” he breathed into her ear. “Buffy, my god.”

   “Quietly!” Buffy hissed. Her legs were naturally wanting to spread, but the tight satin made that impossible. Spike didn’t seem to mind. He arched his hips and pushed his whole body against her, and if he couldn’t reach her core, he sure had the strength and the inclination to make sure she felt every line of him against her. Buffy slipped her hands under his coat, dropping it to the floor with a _thwap_ of soft leather, and then her arms were around his powerful shoulders, and his face was buried in her cleavage, and Buffy had to hold her breath as just the shape of him made her flush, and build, and he pushed against her harder and she came so suddenly she was afraid she’d break the wall.

   “Spike! The dress!”

   “I noticed,” Spike said.

   “No, it’s gonna get... damaged,” Buffy said.

   “Heard nothing rip–”

   “Stained, you idiot,” Buffy said. “Help me take it off.”

   Spike groaned – he hadn’t gotten his yet – but stepped away and helped her lift the slippery satin over her head. The dress didn’t have any active marks from their activity, (Spike could have smelled something if he’d sniffed, but a human couldn’t have) but Buffy had a point – her panties were soaked. She took the dress from him and put it back on the hanger while he used the opportunity to massage her ass.

   “No,” Buffy said.

   “No?”

   “No.” Buffy slapped his hand playfully and he backed off. “This is a dressfitting situation. We’re fitting dresses.”

   “They fit, Buffy. You know what else fits?”

   “A handsome groom behaving himself until he sees the full effect,” Buffy said. She shoved the satin dress into his  hands. “Let me get the next one on.”

   Spike rolled his eyes, but she clearly had a plan. The next dress took some serious help getting on. It buttoned up the back with teeny tiny buttons, leaving her shoulders bare. She sent Spike out with the satin while she tied off the finishing touches on the heart-shaped bodice, and when she stepped out, he smiled. “Charming,” was the word he gave it.

   It was charming. Almost a little too charming – he already knew that heart-shaped bodice was not for Buffy. It was too naive and innocent. The white was too bright, too, and she looked like a marshmallow or something. But the innocent look was indeed charming.

   “I like the bare shoulders,” Buffy said. “But I don’t know about the skirt. Too frou-frou.” She fluffed up all the layers of layers of tuille, and Spike chuckled.

   “I like the shoulders, too, lamb,” Spike said. He came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders as she looked in the mirror. There they were in the mirrors – just Buffy, no Spike. He smiled as the little indentations of his fingers were made clear in the mirror. Spike glanced at the sales clerk – still otherwise occupied – and lowered his hands until they rested on the full tops of her breasts, then he scratched, ever so gently, with his black polished nails. Tiny white lines appeared on Buffy’s smooth breasts in the mirror. “I think the bodice a bit too saccharine, though.”

   “Yeah, I don’t know about the golden arches over my breasts.”

   “Heart shape,” Spike said. He bent his head and kissed her throat, gentle, biting a little. The Buffy in the mirror acquired bite marks quite mysteriously. “Too innocent.” He kissed down her throat and along her shoulder, sending goose bumps racing over her flesh. “You are anything but innocent.”

   “Okay,” Buffy said. “So. Next one. Really gonna need your help getting _this_ one off.”

   “Oh.”

   He followed her into the changing room more sedately this time, and set about kissing her collar and breasts over and over and over again as he tried – without looking – to undo every single one of those infuriating tiny buttons. Fortunately before he was halfway done the dress had fallen down around her waist, and her chest was revealed in all its glory, so he was able to concentrate on her nipples, taking turns, first one then the other then back again, sliding them into his mouth, nibbling on them with his naughty teeth, lapping at them with long, full licks of his tongue, until Buffy was humming and whimpering beneath his ministrations. Her hands gripped hard at his shoulders, nearly bruising him, and he bit a little too hard.

   “Ow!” Buffy hissed.

   “Sorry.”

   “Too late,” Buffy said. She pushed him back. “Your punishment is to hang this up while I put on the next one.” She stepped out of the dress and pointed imperiously to the door.

   She had to know he was hard as a rock. What could she possibly want with him? He groaned, but obeyed the injunction, stepping out with the saccharine sweetness and sliding it back onto the rack.

   He waited until Buffy came out with the next dress, and grinned when he saw it. “Cute.” It was very cute. It was short – the only short dress she had selected – and despite the fine fabric, Spike thought it looked a bit like a 1950's house dress. But a sexy one, he had to admit. In fact, if he had to take a cheerleading outfit and make it into a wedding dress, it might have been this one. It didn’t have a bare midriff – Buffy had better taste than that – but it didn’t have the elegance of the longer hemlines.

   “You think?” Buffy said. “It gave plenty of free movement, I thought, which is always good.” She did a little high kick to demonstrate, and Spike was almost ready to plunk down the rest of the money for the dress _right now_! Because even if she didn’t wear it for the wedding, she looked cute as hell in that thing. He reached out and grabbed the skirt, pulling her toward him by the hem. The fabric was crisp and clean, linen or something in its weave, and it had little patterns woven into it. Flowers and birds.

   “Don’t crease it,” Buffy admonished. “We are not allowed to damage these dresses in _any way._ ”

   Spike growled low. “I’d rather rip it off you right here,” he whispered.

   “You traumatize that poor shop girl and I’ll never forgive you,” Buffy said through a grin.

   “I could always eat her first,” Spike said. “Problem solved.”

   “Gone soulless again, have you?”

   “No,” Spike muttered. “Just _hungry_.”

   Buffy knew he was teasing. “We’ll have to find a way to feed you,” she whispered. “What else is there in here that you could... possibly... eat...?”

   Spike looked up at her under lidded eyes. “You show me.”

   “Show you?”

   “Yeah.” He was all set to take her back into the changing booth, but Buffy decided to show him the _free movement_ of the dress again. She stood with her back to the shop girl, and kicked her leg over Spike’s shoulder.

   Possibly to avoid the _faux pas_ of damaging the dresses, Buffy had removed her sodden panties. She had clearly done some ladyscaping for this escapade. The only hair left was a little blonde triangle... no. That wasn’t a triangle. For fuck’s sake, Buffy had carved a _heart_ into her fur, trimming what was left tight. And – as Spike’s nose found it when he buried himself in it – she’d conditioned it to within a half-inch of its life. The trimmed hair was actually soft as kitten fur, and smelled fantastic, her sweat and her arousal already soaking the little tip of the blonde heart.

   Spike suppressed a groan, and stuck his tongue into the little cleft she had so conveniently placed before it. The smooth, crisp linen/silk blend of her dress taunted him, as he longed to bunch it under his fingers and drag her over his face. Her slippery juices had already moistened her clit, and she tasted as sour and crisp as fresh fruit. She wasn’t going to give him access – and there was only so much he could do without being _incredibly_ obvious to their unwitting audience. He absently hoped the girl liked voyeurism, or they really might traumatize her.

   Unfortunately Buffy only stayed before him for a moment like that, stepping up on the stool and poking at something over his head. “Look at these veils,” she said. “We should find one that goes really well with whatever dress we pick.”

    Spike didn’t see the veils. He couldn’t see the veils at all. Buffy was standing over his head, and his head was tilted back staring at the moist pink lips of her labia, a beautiful mouth he wanted to kiss over and over and over again. Buffy selected something and stepped down off the stool, _inadvertently_ (?!) sliding her damp pussy over his entire lower face as she did so, painting his nose, his lips, and his chin with her juices.

   Spike licked his lips as she stepped back, holding a veil in her hands. It was fluffy, dull inherently, but he wasn’t looking at her hands.

   “You know,” she said. “I don’t think this dress is formal enough for me.”

   “I’ll help you change it,” he said in a dull monotone, meaning, of course, _Let me at that sweet pussy,_ now, _bitch!_

   “I’ll do it,” Buffy said. She skipped – actually bloody _skipped!_ – back to the changing booth, and literally closed it in his face as he followed.

   Spike clenched his fists and glared up at the ceiling in a silent scream. The annoying thing was, she knew _exactly_ what she was doing to him, _and_ she was doing it on purpose, _and_ she felt no remorse for it. _Look at my poor neck. All bare and tender and exposed._ She’d always done shit like this!

   Spike paced. He paced again. He paced again, tiny, tight little circles, back and forth before the closed door. Finally he heard a click of the lock being undone. Then nothing. Nothing. Nothing. He waited. Nothing...! He lost patience, seized the door handle, and shoved it open. “Bloody hell, woman...!” His ire drained away as he saw Buffy inside the changing booth, dressed only in the long veil she had selected, her hands twisted into – was that a garter? – and hung over her head on a clothing hook. She must have unlocked the door with her little pink-painted toes. (Did she _know_   she’d painted her toenails the same color as her labia...?)

   “I’m having some trouble with this one,” Buffy said. “I think I’ll need your help. I’m kind of... stuck.”

   Spike actually stared dumbfounded for several shockingly painful seconds as all his blood fled from his head into the cock he’d already thought was too hard to get any harder.

   Spike finally realized his body had turned off, and he closed the door behind him, firmly locking it. His hands trembled as he gently, softly parted the transparent veil... no. He stopped. “I think,” he said. “That Dawn. And Willow. Might not... think this the best choice of dress.”

   Buffy raised one blonde eyebrow beneath the veil. “Just them?”

   “Xan would love it,” Spike said, and Buffy _blushed_ , which made her even cuter.

   “I’d hate to think of what Giles would say.”

   “I’m not going there,” Spike said. He finally put his hands on her, _over_ the veil, sliding the rough lace over her flushed skin.

   “What do you think of it?”

   There was a perfect word. There had to be... “Scandalous.” His fingernails scratched at her through the lace.

   “No. Don’t. Damage. The goods.”

   “Not any of them?”

   “I think the lace is kinda fragile, Spike.”

   Spike pressed himself in his black jeans and t-shirt against Buffy’s all-but-naked whiteness. Oh, god, it looked naughty. He suddenly wished he had a reflection, so he could see this from an outside perspective. Slowly, reverently, he began sliding across the lace, lifting it, slipping it aside, tickling her with the white symbol of (ha!) innocence.

   Finally, Spike was beneath the veil with her, tasting her lips, his hands sliding down her flushed, moistening skin. Buffy made a little noise in her throat, and convulsed beneath his kisses. “Thought... unh... you were hungry,” she whispered.

   “Starved,” Spike said. He kissed down her chest, down her taut little belly, down to tease the top of her little blond heart with his chin, then abandoning it to kiss her hip, her thigh, down along the back of her knee, kiss down to her ankle –

   “Spike!” Buffy hissed.

   Along the side of her foot, around to her instep, and finally down to her little pink painted toes, which he kissed and suckled, which made her tremble and squeak, trying not to laugh as he tickled her.

   “Spike!” she hissed again. “You’re– ah!”

   She bit back her words as he very suddenly abandoned her foot and _dove_ into her cleft, lapping and licking at her swollen clit. She bent and tried to fall onto him, but the garter she’d twisted herself into held her just a little too high off the ground. He heard a slight ripping sound, and she straightened her knees again.“Spike,” she pleaded.

   He slid away from her clit and down deeper, lapping at her moist core, taking in every drop of that her sweet little quim could give him – no, it wasn’t blood, but it was _her_ – tasting her inside, his sensitive tongue recognizing every tiny ridge inside her.

   Buffy’s hips oscillated, unable to stand still, and suddenly she groaned, quickly biting it back into a whimper as she realized the shop girl was still _right outside_ and the changing booth didn’t even have a ceiling.

   “Spike, let me down.”

   “Not done yet,” he said, his voice muffled.

   “Spike,” Buffy muttered, and Spike sighed, giving her clit one more long, hard suck before he left her – making her bite her lips tight as she came one more time, thinking both _Damn him!_ and _Thank god for him!_

   Spike stood up and helped her take the garter off the hook without ripping it. Well, ripping it further, anyway. He kissed her while he did this, and then his hands went around her, and – fuck it, he was not waiting anymore. He unzipped his pants, and then hissed with pain as the zipper caught at his straining cock.

   “Spike.”

   “Shut it,” he said, popping his belt. He shoved his pants hastily down and kicked them aside, plunging himself into her against the wall. His cock stung where the zipper had caught it, and yes, of course, fucking her hurt. It had to hurt. The wall of the changing booth was flimsy, and it shook.

   “Slow!” Buffy hissed in his ear. “This isn’t an abandoned house!”

   “We break it, we buy it?” Spike said. “I could just buy this place instead of the dojo. Spend the rest of eternity playing dress up with my pretty slayer doll.”

   “I think the selection is a little tame, Spike. Where’s the leather collar?”

   “I could order in a more diverse selection.” Spike was glad she was talking, because it was distracting him from how warm and slippery and perfect she felt around his cock, and he was sure he’d have come already if he hadn’t had the banter to distract him, but it wasn’t going to work, because he was building already, and, god, the slayer was so damn beautiful.

   “Where the best dressed slayers come to–”

   Spike shut her up with a kiss and pushed into her deeper, and ah, oh, oh, god there it was! Thank god, finally! He’d been ready for this from before he’d stopped smoldering.

   “We should get back out there,” Buffy panted. “Shop girl will be suspicious.”

   “If she hasn’t already gone from suspicious to disapproving, I’ll be shocked, love.”

   “She could be going to titillated.” Buffy picked up the next dress – a very full skirted thing with an empire waist and a velvet bow across the front – and slipped it over her head while Spike bent down to get his jeans...

   Only to find they weren’t there.

   “Uh-oh.”

   “What?”

   “I think I kicked them under the door.”

   Buffy looked. The changing room door had a good foot open under it. The two looked at each other in extreme and frankly pointless embarrassment, and then both burst into laughter. If the shop girl had had any doubts... no. She didn’t have any doubts. There was no way she had any doubts at this stage.

   “The one time your jeans don’t get caught on your boots,” Buffy chuckled.

   “I had a goal in mind, slayer. Don’t mind saying I was quite determined.”

   Buffy slipped out the door to collect his jeans, and when she came back she had ill news. “Your zipper is shot.”

   “Shot?”

   “Totally shot.”

   “Bugger,” Spike said, not very quietly. And of all the days to go commando. Ten minutes ago, he’d been thrilled by his decision, but now....

   Damn soul and the modesty thing. Sometimes he regretted that little aspect. Not that it held sway very strongly once his cock got hard, apparently....

   Buffy paused, resplendent in her long-trained white dress. “We’re in a dress shop. Gimme a minute.”

   She slipped outside and carried the offending garment to the shop girl, who by this time looked a little flushed herself. Buffy hoped she was enjoying the show, and didn’t feel traumatized by it or anything. “I was wondering if you have any buttons or, I don’t know, hooks? My fiancé had a bit of a trouble with his...”

   Buffy trailed off, realizing what she’d just said. Fiancé. Spike wasn’t just her boyfriend, he was her fiancé.

   “Yeah, I think I have some dress hooks here,” the shop girl said. She dug in one of her seamstress’s drawers and pulled out a little paper packet with twenty silver dress hooks. “For ten bucks I’ll sew a line over the zipper for you.”

   “Oh, uh. Yeah, that’d be great. We were... um... just checking for... uh...”

   “Sizing,” the shop girl said with a bit of a smirk. “I caught that. You were having some troubles I thought. With the sizing.”

   “No,” Buffy said, smiling. “We don’t have any trouble there at all.”

   “Any of the dresses, ah...?”

   “We’re buying a garter,” Buffy said. “Otherwise, there isn’t a crease.”

   The shop girl smiled. “I thought not.” She addressed Spike's jeans with a good humor.

   She went back to Spike trapped in the changing booth. “You’re good. She’s sewing you some hooks.”

   “Thank god. You got anything for me to wear while I’m waiting?”

   “Nope!” Buffy said gleefully.

   She could almost hear his eyes rolling. She opened the door instead and peered in at him. “In the meantime, how’s this dress?”

   “Terrible,” Spike muttered. “I’d trip over the train in a minute.”

   Buffy felt unexpectedly hurt. “Terrible?”

   Spike felt absurdly exposed in only his black t-shirt, with his cock and balls hanging free to the wind. Buffy seemed to admire the view, though. He regarded the slayer with a more critical eye. “Okay. Not terrible. Enchanting. But it’s a waste of your figure.”

   “Hm?”

   “You’ve a lovely waist, pet.”

   Buffy shrugged. “Well. I didn’t like it much, either. But I thought you might.”

   “Why?”

   She stepped up to him, back into the booth with him, and lifted his hand. “Well... the fabric.”

   The soft – very soft now that he had his hands on it – velvet of the bow was sensual under his fingers, and he smiled. “That is nice.”

   “I thought so.”

   “Does it untie?”

   “If there was one that did, I’d have got it,” Buffy said. “But they don’t make anything with that much easy access for the actual _ceremony_.”

   “We seemed to be handling it all right.”

   “You were handling everything. Including this,” Buffy said, as his hands hadn’t left the bow.

   “Yeah. That’s velvet?” he asked.

   “Mmhm.”

   “Then these must be felt,” he said, sliding both his hands along the velvet bodice over her breasts.

   Buffy almost smacked him for that awful line. “Okay, I’ll try the next one. Move over.”

   She lifted the empire waist over her head and handed it to Spike while she put on her final choice, an extremely lacy get up with what was called a mermaid skirt, which clung tight to her hips while then flaring out at the bottom. Spike ran his hands down the empire waist as he hung it up, and Buffy looked down at the lace. It didn’t _feel_ right.

   “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s really...”

   “Elegant,” Spike said.

   “It is,” Buffy said. “But I don’t feel very elegant.” She frowned. “I’m gonna go look at it in the mirror.”

   She went out and stared at the three way mirror, trying to see something that looked right. She looked like she was in a wedding dress. She looked like a fairy tale. She suddenly felt sick.

   She closed her eyes and took in several deep breaths, trying to find her center, like Giles taught her so long ago. Damn thing wasn’t anywhere.

   “You okay, love?”

   Spike’s voice was suddenly heavy in her ear, and his cool breath was almost instantly relaxing. She sagged backwards against him – again, no Spike in the mirror. “I love you,” she whispered.

   “Love you, too,” he whispered back.

   “What if it all goes to hell?”

   “Then we claw our way back,” Spike said. “Like we always do.”

   Buffy took in a deep breath and turned to hug him.

   And stopped short. “Spike... why?”

   Spike was wearing the empire waist. It looked even sillier, because he hadn’t buttoned it up the back, and he still had his black t-shirt on under it. “Buffy?” he asked. “Do you have any idea how long you’ve been out here? I called to you. You didn’t answer.”

   How long had Buffy been standing here with her eyes closed, staring into her own fears? She had no idea. “Why didn’t you just button up your duster?”

   Spike opened his mouth, and then closed it again, and she realized the idea had simply not occurred to him. Sometimes he could be absolutely brilliant. And then sometimes... some emotion or other would get hold of him, and...! Buffy laughed.

   “Hey, at least I got a grin,” Spike said. He held his arms out and spun. The skirt swirled, the velvet bow like an elaborate joke of a bowtie across his chest. “Like the look on me?”

   Buffy jumped forward and kissed him, hard, so full of love for this man it seemed to spill out of her, bleeding onto the floor like her blood. “I like everything about you.”

   “I should put you in a pretty dress more often,” Spike said.

   Buffy looked down. “I think that’s the problem,” she said. “They all look too perfect.”

   “And this isn’t perfect, pet?”

   She sighed. “If it’s perfect... it won’t be. Something will happen....” She surveyed her selection of wedding dresses, including the two they were wearing. “I don’t want any of them.”

   Spike regarded her for a long moment. Then he abruptly walked away from her. Buffy was afraid he was angry, or hurt.

   The long train trailed after him as he walked away from the wedding dresses and started sorting through a rack on the other side of the shop. “Spike? What are you...?”

   “Hang on a tick, pigeon,” he said. “Ah, there we go.” He came back a second later and put a dress in her hand. A dress from the other, more colorful side of the shop, where the bridesmaids dresses were. “Try that on. I’ll wait.”

   Buffy looked down at it.

   Five minutes later she came back out of the changing booth to find Spike sliding his jeans on underneath his white skirt. He smiled when he saw her. “Perfect,” he said.

   Buffy looked down. The dress was satin, champagne in color, almost the same shade of blonde as her hair. It came off one shoulder, leaving it bare. The tiniest pin dotting of red roses decorated the other. The roses looked, from a distance, like spots of fresh blood. The skirt was off center by design, one side a couple feet longer than the other, and Buffy realized that she could easily reach the thigh-holster for her stake from the shorter side, while still having the swish and elegance from the longer one.

   Golden. Not the white of innocence. Not the lace of elegance. Sensual and sprightly and slightly off kilter, with spots of blood that didn’t stain, but only made her more beautiful. Spike’s eyes were soft as he admired her. “God, look at you. You glow in that dress. You know, I still haven’t found a good rhyme for _gleaming_.”

   “Seeming,” Buffy said absently. “Dreaming.” She turned to look in the mirror. He was right. It was perfect. Slayer chic. “Screaming,” she said.

   Spike put his arms around her, still in his white velvet bow. “How about redeeming?”

   Buffy sank her head against his softness. It was wonderful to be held by him. “Yeah,” she whispered. “How about that.”

 


	3. Cake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter contains consensual play-fighting and force-play.

 

  
    “Thanks for meeting on such short notice,” Buffy said to the owner and baker of Sweet Fantasy, whose name was Beatrice MacNamara. “And after work.”

    “No trouble at all,” the woman said. “Please, call me Triss. You said you were interested in my antique recipes? That’s my specialty.”

    “Yeah, my... my fiancé is really into Victorian recipes,” Buffy said. She was still trying out that word.

    “So you’re the lucky man I spoke to on the phone.” Triss shook Spike’s hand. “William, was it?”

    “Yeah. You said you had some samples for us?”

    “And a portfolio, so you can see some of my previous work,” Triss said. “How about we look at that first, and then I pull out some of the samples?”

    “Right. Here, I got the fee for that–”

    “Oh, we’ll worry about that at the end,” Triss said. She’d told him over the phone that a fee for a sample tasting was about forty bucks, depending on how many different samples she’d offer, which given how she was actually making mini-cakes made sense. She sat them both down and pulled out her cake portfolio.

    There was some beautiful stuff. Roses and lattice work and explosions of molded sugar detail, toppers made of icing and sugar and marzipan, cakes that were riots of color, cakes that were so pristine white they looked like miracles of clouds, carved marble, or ice. Buffy was blown away.

    Spike just looked nostalgic. “And you claimed you would do spun sugar?” he asked. “Bird’s nests. I was thinking, maybe, with doves?”

    “You said you’d seen something like that as a boy.”

    “Yeah,” Spike said. “It was a long time ago.”

    “Couldn’t have been that long,” Triss said with a big grin. “You barely look out of your twenties, you young scamp.”

    “You’d be surprised,” Spike said.

    “She would be. Is this really the kind of stuff you saw when you were a kid, Spike?”

    “Nah, they didn’t start doing elevated tiers like that until after I was turned,” Spike said. “But they’re pretty, aren’t they?”

    “Turned?” Triss asked. “What... what does that mean? Turned to Jesus?”

    “Not quite,” Spike said.

    “But is this what they had in the Victorian era?” Buffy asked.

    “Absolutely,” Triss said.

    “Actually, it’s more ornate, in a lot of ways,” Spike said. “Technology changes things. The proof will be in the pudding. Or the recipes.”

    “Will you be able to taste the difference?” Buffy said. “Angel always said vampires didn’t taste things the same way.”

    “Maybe we don’t, but he never liked human food. I never stopped.” He was about to say something about recognizing the smell of chiffon cake even after he’d been turned, but Triss interrupted.

    “Wait,” said the baker. “You... you’re a vampire?”

    “Yep,” Spike said. “Damn good at it, too.”

    The baker suddenly closed the portfolio and snatched it off Buffy’s lap. She backed away, looking nervous.

    “Oh, it’s okay,” Buffy said. “I’m a slayer, and Spike has a soul. He doesn’t drink human blood at all.”

    “Not... really,” Spike said.

    “But you’re getting _married_?” Triss said, looking confused.

    “Looks like,” Buffy said. “Might as well by this time. We’ve been making it work fine now for... how long?”

    “Long enough,” Spike said.

    “Spike has been off human blood for years.”

    Spike smirked, knowing that was only technically true if you didn’t count slayers as human. Which, Buffy realized, given the continued horror on the face of the baker, she might not. “Well,” Triss said. “I... I don’t think I’m going to be able to help you.”

    “Help us? Help us what?”

    “I don’t think I can make a wedding cake for you,” Triss said. “I’m very sorry.”

    Buffy frowned. “What’s wrong? My sister’s friend Gretchen swore up and down you were the best at this old style.”

    “Well, that’s true,” Triss said. “But I don’t think I can be of any help to _you_.”

    She had backed up behind the counter now. “Why not?” Buffy asked.

    “Buffy,” Spike said low. He’d already caught on. “It’s all right.”

    “No,” Buffy said, confused. “Why couldn’t you make our wedding cake?”

    “I don’t make cakes against my principles,” Beatrice said. “It’s not against you or anyone, or the kinds of things people choose to be a part of. But I won’t make a cake with, say, risque figures or lewd phrases, or something that portrays alcohol or something. I’ve turned down making quite a number of cakes for a lot of reasons, it’s really nothing to do with you personally.”

    “What do you mean?” Buffy asked. “We’re asking for, what, doves in spun sugar. How is that against your principles?”

    “It’s a wedding cake.”

    “And?”

    “Buffy,” Spike warned her.

    “Well..., you shouldn’t be getting married,” the woman said as if it were obvious.

    Buffy was dumbfounded. “Huh?”

    “It’s against God’s law,” Beatrice said. She stepped up to her drawer and put away her portfolio, and then she pulled out...

    The woman had an eight inch cross.

    “Now just wait a minute,” Buffy said.

    “Buffy,” Spike said. “Let’s just go.”

    “No!” Buffy was suddenly livid. All the years of trouble she and Spike had been through, all the hell Spike had fought through, all the good he had done. This woman was only alive because Buffy and Spike had fought tooth and nail and sacrificed everything over and over again to save the planet, and they’d gone through all that just so that this arrogant bitch could stand there and have the privilege of saying they didn’t deserve to marry? “What the fuck are you talking about? How the fuck is us getting married against god’s fucking law? You’d rather we go about living in sin?”

    “Buffy,” Spike said again.

    “You could simply control yourselves,” the woman said, now confident behind her cross. “But God ordained marriage for men and women, not for... well, whatever you are.”

    Buffy put Spike behind her, her hands clenching into fists. “Is that right?” she said. “And what about what you are? A cruel and hateful bigot who–”

    “Oh, no, don’t misunderstand me!” the woman said. “I really do wish you both all the best with... well... whatever you, um, wish to do. You seem to be making really good choices within your demonic lifestyle. That no eating people, thing. I mean... good for you! And, really, you can’t really be living in sin, because sin only applies to people, right?”

    Buffy blinked. “You’re claiming _I’m_ not a people, now?”

    “Oh. Well. I’m... still uncertain on that one,” the woman said. “I mean, that kind of ‘slaying’ lifestyle isn’t something I understand, though I know it has its place. But really, think about it. God ordained that marriage is for man and woman, until death do you part. And, well... death has already parted you.”

    “Several times,” Buffy snapped. “On both fucking sides, all to save _your_ worthless life, you arrogant bitch!”

    “Buffy,” Spike said, more forcefully now. He took her arm. “Let’s just go, pet. She doesn’t understand.”

    “Well then, we’ll have to _inform_ her,” Buffy snapped.

    “No,” Spike said. “We won’t.”

    Buffy ripped her arm out of his hand. “I’m not just gonna take this! She just claimed our entire relationship some kind of abomination!”

    “And maybe she has a point,” Spike said.

    Buffy’s head snapped to him. “Don’t you _ever_ say that again. You _died_ for this woman, _I’ve_ died for this woman, and now she just gets to wave her crosses and call us monsters?”

    “Yes,” Spike said. “She does.” He turned to the woman. “And when heaven spits on her for her ignorance and hatred, that’s her lookout, not ours.” He put his arm around Buffy. “We’ll just go.”

    “I don’t hate you,” Beatrice said clearly. “I really don’t. I’m... sorry if you feel like I do. It’s just that the plan God has for you isn’t the plan He has for us, and while I don’t condone your choices, I don’t have any hate–”

    “Save it!” Buffy snapped. “Maybe you have piety and crosses, but that wouldn’t stop me from bashing your face in! You know the only thing that’s stopping me?”

    The woman looked frightened.

    “This vampire. Who has more love in his little pinky than you have in your entire fucking _body_. And who quite frankly has shown more love, more mercy, and more favor from the Powers That Be in the last two minutes than I’ll bet you’ve shown in your entire fucking _life_.”

    “It’s enough, love,” Spike said, leading her to the door.

    Buffy still wouldn’t go. “How the hell do you think god wants this kind of bigotry?” Buffy snapped. “Whatever happened to _love thy neighbor_?”

    “I do care about you,” Beatrice said. “Truly, I wouldn’t ever want you hurt or suffering. It pains me that God has turned His back on you, but in the end when I die, and I'm one on one with God, I have to stand true to Him."

    “Oh, go to hell!” Buffy snapped. “And when I say that, you should know, I’ve been there. And to heaven. And let me tell you, lady, people like you don’t go to heaven. People like us do. People like you? They can’t even find the place. So. Go to hell. That’s not a suggestion. That’s a promise. You’re going to hell.”

    “Excuse me!” The woman had gone white.

    “My lady kinda knows what she’s talking about, sorry,” Spike said to Beatrice. “Don’t envy you. Come on, pet.” He finally got Buffy to leave the bakery.

    Buffy stomped down the sidewalk like she was crushing demons underfoot, quickly, fuming all the while, muttering under her breath. “Who the fuck does she think she is? God’s voice on fucking earth? She doesn’t know what the fuck she’s talking about!”

    “Calm down, love.”

    “No! I’m not gonna fucking calm down! I’m angry!”

    “I get that,” Spike said. “But that’s not punishing her, is it?”

    “Well something should! What the fuck does she think she’s doing? I am fucking certain neither god nor Jesus ever expressed any opinions whatsoever on the proper Christian etiquette for baking wedding cakes.”

    “I don’t recall ever reading about it in the King James edition, no,” Spike said.

    “I know, right? And here she is, claiming her precious god has turned its fucking self-righteous back on _you_? How the fuck does she know! Was _she_ ever resurrected? What the fuck!”

    “She’s just ignorant, Buffy. A lot of people are.”

    “How the fuck can you be so fucking calm about this?” Buffy demanded.

    “I’m not calm.”

    “You’re standing there like the fucking rock of Gibraltar!”

    “Only one of us is allowed to break down at a time, love. Clearly tonight’s freak out belongs to you.”

    “Oh, fuck you.”

    “Fuck you back!”

    Buffy hit him in the chest for emphasis. “Don’t you get it, she just fucked us both six ways from Sunday!”

    “How?” Spike shoved her away from him and down the edge of an alley. “She’s one dumb baker in a world of the things.”

    “We do this until it stops being fun,” Buffy yelled at him. “She just made this the biggest steaming pile of unfun I could possibly imagine!”

    “Well, that’s on her, not us, right?”

    “Yeah, what’s that got to do with it?”

    “Are we gonna let her have that kind of power over us?”

    “Fuck no!”

    “Fucking right, you bitch!”

    “Did you just call me a bitch?” Buffy shouted.

    Spike’s eyes gleamed with mischief. “Yeah!”

    “Why?”

    “Because I’m fucking angry!”

    “Well, I am too!” Buffy yelled back.

    “Good!” Spike shoved her hard, and Buffy’s hand clenched into a fist automatically as she almost clocked him one. Was he...?

    He raised his eyebrow at her hesitation. “Well? What you waitin’ for, slayer? Lay it on me!”

    He was. Anger, passion, fury, love, they were all tangled up in the vampire, and they were all charged through her, too. The pain of this random rejection, completely out of their control, had cut and tried to undermine the core of their relationship, their very selves, and there was no one else strong enough to bear the brunt of the anger. And if the anger happened to take the form of their relationship itself, well... fucking good! The pain was easier to handle when it was physical, and lots easier to handle when it was just between them.

    They could own the pain, make it entirely theirs, and that cunt could go suck on it!

    Buffy leapt at his offer. Her blood was up, and her anger had charged her, and she punched Spike in the nose. He hit her back, smacking her sideways with the side of his arm, and Buffy made a noise – a laugh or a snarl, she couldn’t quite tell which – and launched herself at him, and he gave back as good as he got. She beat him back against the wall, and he used the leverage to jump forward and give her a pretty decent kick. She flew back against a dumpster, and grunted as the impact left her winded.

     _Oh_ , the bastard was gonna get it for that! She jumped up onto the metal lid and hurtled at him from above, knocking him to the ground. He rolled, knocking over a garbage can, and kicked her into the air again before leaping catlike onto his feet. They circled each other warily. Always a game, who was going to make the first move... slayer of vampires, or slayer of slayers.

    As usual, Spike’s patience broke first, and he lunged for her, a solid body blow. Strike, strike, strike, deeper and deeper into the alley (and not incidentally further away from the occupied street.) Buffy blocked, and hit, and missed, and ducked, and whirled, and grunted when his booted foot connected to her belly, and she landed on her back, but whirled herself upright again with a move that made his eyes spark.  

   “Nice moves, love.” He grinned. “Now try it when it counts.”

    “Oh, you think you’re gonna win this?” Buffy snapped. “Think again, creep.”

    “I’ll think that again, slayer,” Spike said. “I’ll keep thinking it, over and over. I’m gonna wi-in,” he taunted.

    Oh, but he was infuriating! Buffy slammed him in the face for that, and he grunted, and struck at her, and ducked her next blow, and slammed her up against the wall. The corner of a window ledge stabbed her in the back, and she grunted. “Ow!”

    “You okay?”

    “Yeah,” she said, knocking his arms from him and shoving him backwards. “Fuck you,” she muttered. “You fucking jerk! Fuck you, and the hog you rode in on!”

    “I–” Spike snarled, striking at her, “am not – gonna take that – from _you,_ slayer!”

    “Gonna follow me around, making moon eyes instead?”

    “Worked so far, hasn’t it?” he barked. He hit her in the face, and she blocked the move too late, instead turning her block into a body blow that made him grunt. He countered with a side swipe like a panther, which made her ear ring, so she picked him up and dropped him into the dumpster. The lid closed on his laugh. A second later the lid exploded upwards again, and Spike leaped out like a deer, a smile still plastered on his face.

    The grin of triumph quickly died off Buffy’s, however, as she saw what his dumpster dive had cost him. A broken bottle protruded from his abdomen, making his black t-shirt darker with his blood. “Oh, shit, Spike!”

    “What?”

    Buffy pointed.

    Spike glanced down, and dismissed it. “I’m fine,” Spike said. He pulled out the bottle and threw it aside.

    “You wanna–”

    “I’m fine!” Spike snarled, vamping out. He jumped down to strike at her again.

    Buffy laughed. He didn’t want to give up his slayer battle. She didn’t blame him. They hadn’t done this in a while. She hit him in the chest, avoiding any blows near the wound, and then gave an uppercut to his jaw. She cut her knuckle on his teeth, but she didn’t even notice the tiny pain. She spun and kicked him, and he flew across the alley, impacting the wall hard enough he dented the facade. Okay, tone it down a bit (dammit! She was really getting into this!) He was still a little dazed, trying to get up, when Buffy jumped him, and suddenly they were wrestling, the blows traded for full on strength against strength.

    She glared up into his yellow eyes, fighting for supremacy. They rolled over and over, first one, than the other on top, knocking over trash cans and scaring a couple of roosting pigeons, who flew up into the darkness with feathered indignation. The vampire and the slayer’s mutual rage poured into each other, burning out harmlessly in someone strong enough to take it. Buffy probably won the wrestling match as they finally struck a wall they didn’t break, and she found she was hitting him over and over. “It’s... not... fair!”

    Then the shouts turned into sobs, and violence turned into tears of impotent rage, and Spike’s soft lips were kissing her face, his yellow fighting eyes abandoned for his blue loving ones.

    “Not fair,” she whimpered (yes, whimpered, dammit, she was allowed to break down in front of him) and she kissed him hard. Spike let her for a bit, and then claimed the kiss, wrestling her onto her back, as hard as she had been a moment before. His human teeth nipped and nibbled at her flesh, all along her jawline, her throat, down to the edge of her shirt. Holding. Her. Down.

    Power. Strength. He’d lost the fight, but he could win another way.

    They took turns with this. Sometimes she was the one on top. Sometimes Buffy was the one with the hobbyhorse who wasn’t allowed to say no. Sometimes she held _him_ down, and sometimes she even penetrated him and made him say he was filthy and whorish and unworthy. But tonight he deserved the power, dammit. The idea of that self-righteous bitch negating him made Buffy want to cry. Often it was a tit for tat; whoever won the battle would be the victim in this – what could follow. Oh, she was so ready for that right now.

    “I’m gonna fight you,” Buffy warned him.

    “Good.”

    Now for the second battle. Not strength, but power. Not given pain, but taken pleasure.

    Buffy tried to push Spike off. He grabbed her wrist and held it down, reaching for her skirt with his other hand. Buffy lifted her leg and tried to force him off with it, but he strove for her underwear anyway. She had enough leverage to push him off, but she was afraid of ripping at his wound more, and anyway, she didn’t really want him off, she just wanted to play that she did. They had their safeword in place. They both knew not to stop unless it was deployed.    

    That was the thing that Buffy had found most satisfying about the safeword, which had surprised her. It wasn’t the knowledge that the other would stop if one of them felt unsafe. It wasn’t the comfort of the “victim” that turned out to be the most important – not for the two of them, anyway. It was the clear and certain knowledge that they didn’t _have_ to stop, unless that word came between them. It was freedom to let go, to keep pushing, to not keep questioning over and over again, “Is this too far, should I pull back, am I hurting him?” They could be as demonic as they wanted with each other. Maybe she was hurting him. Maybe he was hurting her. Both of them... kinda liked to hurt sometimes.

    What happened next would have looked incredibly violent to an outside observer, just like their play-fight did, but it felt fantastic. Buffy struggled and strained and pushed against him, and Spike forced and tore and held her down and wouldn’t let her up. She had to be careful of his wound, and really even without that, she was holding back, and really he knew that. Which kinda made it hotter. ‘Cause it meant she wanted it.

    God, did she want it.

    “I should find a stake, you bastard,” Buffy muttered up at him. “You just wait. The minute you close your eyes. You’re dust, you hear me? Dust and ash, you’ll never see another night after this one.”

    “Shut up, you stupid bint,” Spike whispered back. “I’m gonna take you. Yeah, I know it, you’re such a dirty slut, you want the fucking monster in you, don’t you. Can’t get enough of this filthy creature, gonna hold you down and violate you.”

    “God, I hate you. You’ll never be forgiven for this, never, you hear me? You’re– umph!” Her vitriol was silenced by his mouth, forcing her into a kiss as his hand finally fought off her other one, and both of them were held up above her head. Buffy felt his grip on her right hand loosening as he caught her left, but what the fuck, just pretend he still held it secure. She never had figured out exactly how to fake having a kiss forced on her and actually enjoying said kiss, so mostly she just kissed him back, but it didn’t seem to detract from the game.

    “Fuck!” she breathed when he let her, and oh, god, he’d gotten it out while she was distracted and – damn, that ripping sound meant more underwear. Really she went through more pairs of panties! Though... worth it. Definitely worth it, as she felt him plunge into her, hard and cool and powerful, and she squeezed him and bucked, almost as if she were trying to throw him off, but they both knew better.

    “That’s right, bitch,” Spike whispered down at her. “Feel it, feel me in you, take it!”

    “Fuck you!”

    “Damn straight,” he murmured.

    Buffy tilted her head back, and damn he felt good!

    Buffy had an orgasm building already, and she grunted and squeaked as she tried to hold it back, because she didn’t want this to end too quickly; she needed the release after that fucking bitch tried to sneeze her version of religious mucus over their beautiful love. She couldn’t hold it. It burst through her, making her grunt, and then scream as he _just. Kept. Going._

    Eventually he slowed down and let her orgasm cool before he went pushing his way looking for another one. She could feel him deep, deep inside, striking things she didn’t even have names for, and, oh, right. Fighting. She made another half-hearted attempt to struggle him off her, and got her arms free from above her head, but Spike only used the opportunity to hold them both to her chest, which incidentally had his hands rubbing on her nipples with every thrust, and okay, yeah, maybe she’d kind of _put_ her hands in that position when he’d held her by the wrists and made her curl in on herself.

    He was whispering, something about how she had no choice, this was what she was made for, to be his, every part of her, particularly this hot, wet little quim which he was gonna make into his cumdump and she couldn’t say anything about it, could she, little whore that she was.

    The dirty, obscene words made Buffy’s breath catch. “No,” she whispered back. “No, I can’t. All yours...”

    “You don’t get to pick,” he said. “I just take what I want.”

    “That’s right,” she whispered back. “I’m a filthy little whore. Your fucking victim. You take what you want. You gonna take what you want.”

    “Oh, yeah,” Spike said. “I want you. You, you, you’re mine, Buffy. That’s right, come for me you little slut. Come on. Yeah. That’s it, come, come – ha!”

    He’d made her come again. How the fuck did he know her body so well? Buffy moaned as she spasmed, and Spike grinned, and doubled down on his thrusts, not giving her a chance to recuperate at all. She was screaming with her third – far too heavily forced – orgasm when he finally came himself and let her stop, panting and gasping, and she knew there was no way she was going to be able to walk for... time. Time was a unit of measurement, and that was too many numbers right now. He rolled off her with a contented sigh, and panted, as if he needed air.

    Buffy lay exhausted when he was finally done with her, looking up at the dirty city sky from among the trash in the filthy alley. She felt _fantastic._

    This particular form of rough play hadn’t been part of their sexual repertoire, not for years. It was only recently that they’d both felt comfortable enough to add in the as-if-you-were-forced style back to the menu. They’d both had understandable hang ups about it, but the wonderful part about that was, they’d both realized, if you could get past it, it made for some absolutely _stunning_ orgasms. It had been a victory when they’d realized all the pain and guilt and sorrow connected to the concept no longer had any power over them. They were stronger than their pasts, their love and their passion more powerful than any mistake. They were lovers. They loved each other. They could do what they liked, and fuck it if any outside observer would think it weird, or wrong.

    Really not surprising they’d wanted this tonight.

    Spike curled up beside her on his arm and gazed down at her, gently fondling random strands of her hair, stroking her hairline with one finger, his head cocked in wonder. “God, I love you,” he whispered. It seemed random, after all the violence and the vitriol, but it wasn’t. That was what all of it was about.

    “Love you, too,” Buffy whispered absently. She didn’t feel all better. She still had a sick knot of a rage ball in the pit of her stomach, but she could handle it now. It no longer made her want to do something deadly, or something stupid, and she was really, really glad she had Spike to pour this shit out into, otherwise it stayed inside and festered, or it got all over her friends in ways she didn’t like, and usually (one way or another) ruined her life.

    Spike could take the shit, run it through violence, and give it back as strength. She loved that about him.

    She was pretty sure she did the same for him.

    Spike ran his fingers down her arm and then paused, thoughtful. Buffy only now realized she’d cut her knuckle. Spike lifted her hand and caressed the wounded finger with his thumb, then raised it to his mouth to kiss it better.

    He could kiss wounds better. Sort of. Vampire venom had a natural anesthetic which could dull the pain of a bite if they gave back as they suckled. On an ordinary human it also prevented clotting, though slayers were immune to that aspect. There was also a highly addictive general euphoria if the victim got enough venom in the bloodstream, but usually that took a full-on bite with a large vein to take effect. That was what made blood-junkies, that euphoria. Buffy wasn’t going to get that with this little cut. Her finger hadn’t really hurt until she’d noticed the wound, and the pain vanished almost immediately as he sucked on it, but it felt good to feel his cool lips on her.

    He kissed the finger better and slid it out of his mouth. Buffy pushed it back. “Keep going.”

    Spike smiled slightly and slid the finger in more deeply, holding it trapped between his human teeth, sucking and tonguing at the little wound, and Buffy made a small hum. The strength of his jaw made the pain return in the form of a slight bruise, and she snuggled in closer to him to enjoy it, before the prolonged contact with his venom made even that pain vanish. Her finger began to feel numb, and though she knew there was no way she could be getting a proper bite hit from this tiny wound on her finger, it still felt really good.

    “My finger’s gone numb,” she said after a bit.

    Spike visibly released his jaw – can’t judge damage if you can’t feel pain – but kept tonguing at the wound, even though he couldn’t possibly have still been getting blood from it. Buffy chuckled and gazed up at the stars again, wishing the dirty concrete were her bed at home, because sleep. Sleep seemed good, suddenly. It was insanely early for them, but she was inexplicably tired after the... ordeal that should have been a fun cake-tasting session.

    She pulled her hand out of his mouth and caressed his head. Not worthy of marriage. What the fuck did that bitch know? “I’m gonna fucking marry you, you know that?”

    Spike smiled at her, looking unaccountably shy. “Too right, slayer. Who else you gonna beat up if you don’t?”  
    

 


	4. Icing

 

    
       Dawn was studying with her friend when Spike and Buffy got home. “Hey! Did you plan the cake? What are you getting? Can we see a sketch or something?” Dawn asked.

    “You seem a lot more interested than you were this morning, Dawn,” Buffy muttered.

    “I’m not. Gretchen is.”

    “I’m... um. It’s okay. You don’t need to bug them,” said Gretchen. Gretchen was small, and dark, and kinda cuddly looking. Buffy wasn’t surprised the girl was majoring in culinary arts. She looked like she should be in a kitchen. Or in Willow’s little Wicca circle, hovering over a cauldron or something. “I was... more interested in the recipes.”

    “Gretchen would like to make antique cakes. She wanted to hear about yours.”

    “We’re not getting one,” Buffy said. She dropped her purse onto the table by the door and stalked to the fridge. “Is there any Tab?”

    “I think so,” Dawn said. “You’re not getting a cake?”

    “Not from Sweet Fantasy, anyway. It’s a long story, niblet,” Spike said. He nodded at Gretchen. “Hey.”

    “Hi.”

    “Does your friend know we’re following a demonic lifestyle, Dawn?” Buffy stood up with a cold soda in her hand. “I’m a slayer,” she announced. “Spike’s a vampire. Our roommate’s a witch. Mind if I out your keyness, Dawnie?”

    Dawn looked bewildered. “Why shouldn’t you?”

    “Oh, because, you know, those demonic lifestyle choices. They really are against God’s law, don’t you know.”

    “Which law?” Gretchen asked.

    “I don’t fuckin’ know,” Buffy snapped. “But apparently God has turned His back on us, and we’re not allowed to be married, because marriage is only for men and women, not demonic creatures like us. But it’s okay, because we’re not really living in sin anyway, because sin only applies to _people_.”

    The soda in Buffy’s hand exploded as she squeezed it too hard. Cold fizzy Tab burst over the room, and all over Buffy. She sputtered for a moment, trying to hold onto her ire, but the absurdity of the whole situation overwhelmed her and she burst into laughter. And if it sounded vaguely hysterical... well. Spike couldn’t really blame her.

    “It’s complicated, little bit,” Spike said, sliding into the kitchen alcove and grabbing paper towels. “Ms. Beatrice MacNamara believes she has a direct line to god, and god told her we shouldn’t be married. Because that makes sense to her. So. No wedding cakes for us, not from her sinless hands.”

    “That’s stupid,” Gretchen said. “How can she claim to know the will of god?”

    “Caught that little bit of arrogance, did you?” Spike asked. “I gave up thinking I knew what any higher power might want after I got a soul. You’d think it’ve made me more certain.” He kissed some of the soda off Buffy’s cheek and daubed some of it from her hair. “Didn’t.”

    “More depth means less certainty,” Buffy said quietly.

    “But more truth,” Spike said to her.

    “Isn’t it illegal not to serve you?” Dawn asked. “I mean, civil rights, everyone gets to sit at the lunch counter and that, regardless of skin color, religion or... or... fangs?”

    “Vampires weren’t included in the civil rights laws, niblet,” Spike said. “For good reason. They were usually eating the proprietors.”

    “Yeah, but _you_ aren’t,” Dawn said. “And everyone knows about vampires now, right? And killing people is still illegal, so most of them have stopped doing it. I mean, so long as you weren’t breaking the windows or demanding she do something she couldn’t do, like make a blood cake or something, doesn’t that mean she has to treat you like you were anyone else?”

    “No,” Spike said. “She doesn’t.”

    “But I’ve seen. People can sue for this sort of thing. They get damages for emotional suffering and discrimination and–”

    “For god’s sake Dawn!” Spike snapped, his temper too short. “There’s no civil rights movement for vampires, and I’m not about to plonk myself down as the vampire version of Rosa bloody Parks! People get lynched for that.”

    “You could fight it.”

    “And when _you_ get strung on the cross for being a vamp lover, on a day when I’m not there?” Spike said pointedly. “What about Giles, or Xander? What if they just take out the windows at high noon, bit? What the hell do I do then, apart from burn? That’s why we stayed secret for so long; we’re scary, and we spend over twelve hours a day _really vulnerable_. I lived through Jim Crow, I watched the lynchings, the beatings, the shootings, and that was against completely innocent humans who just wanted to use the damn swimming pool. I’m not gonna try and fight this. I have too much to lose.”

    “Spike, calm down,” Buffy said. “Dawn’s just trying to help.”

    “No. She just doesn’t get it. Look, little bit. There are no discrimination laws in place for vampires, and that will stay the case until we fight for them. And if we fight, people will die. We are killers. We’re cursed creatures, and we’re damn strong. I don’t want vampires killing people for hating them.”

    “But what about the vampires...?”

    “What about them? So, some of them are paler shades of grey and try not to kill people. Can’t rely on that. Our nature is to want to be evil. I handle vampires with extreme prejudice myself.”

    “But one who’s trying to be good–”

    “How the hell would anyone know? Stick gold stars on our shirts, _Good Vampire, Do Not Stake_? Oh, and try not to be mean to us, ‘cause it hurts our widdle feelings.” Spike shook his head. “Most vampires _are_ evil, and _are_ out for the kill, bit. The baker had a point. We were just dumb to let her know the truth. Next time I’ll just make sure I’m passing for human.”

    “I’m not going to hide what you are, Spike,” Buffy said. “You shouldn’t have to try and pass.”

    “Well, that’s how I’m handling it, pet. You’re stuck. I’m going full into-the-closet next bakery.”

    “No. I’m _proud_ of what you are, it took guts to change!”

    “No one is going to want to sit through my life history, Buffy. And even if they did, more than half of them would think I _still_ deserve dust. I killed a lot of people, for a long time.”

    “But you–”

    “Stop it!” Spike growled. “I paid my debt to society with the ultimate sacrifice? Balls to bollocks, no one gives a damn about that. Sometimes they don’t even give ex-felons voting rights after petty bloody larceny! I was a killer. I’m still a killer, dammit.”

    “You’re no more of a killer than I am!” Buffy snapped.

    Spike looked at her with an eyebrow raised, and Buffy stopped. The reality of the whole situation was crashing down around her, and she didn’t like the conclusions it led to.

    Spike sighed and took hold of her arms. “Look. We’ll just be more careful. Maybe... maybe see if there’s a bakery that caters to demons, if you really don’t want to keep under wraps.”

    “I don’t really want yak-urine honey cakes, Spike.”

    “Well, if you want a bakery that caters to _my kind,_ Buffy, you might have to be a little less picky.”

    “What, separate but equal?” Buffy snapped.

    Spike threw his hands up. “I didn’t arrange for this! I just have to live it! It’s either keep it under wraps, or stick with the demon underground, all right?”

    “She’s right, though,” Gretchen said quietly. “They won’t have the recipes you want. I know, I’ve looked.”

    Spike looked over to her. “You sure? It’s not like they’re trade secrets or anything. Hell, my mum went through four different cooks in my salad days, and they all knew this stuff.”

    “But lots of it got lost,” Gretchen said. “And some of the nuances, they’re just not there in the recorded recipes. Sweet Fantasy has her recipes from this Victorian notebook she found, from a professional cook. She makes a big deal about it in her pamphlets.” Gretchen reached down into her backpack and pulled out a crumpled and highly notated pamphlet. Spike couldn’t help but recognize some of the same photos he’d just been looking at in Beatrice MacNamara’s portfolio.

    Beatrice – ugh, Spike was sick of giving that woman the benefit of her own name. The capitals in her signature atop the pamphlet were larger than the rest of her name. That would do. He’d think of her as B.M. – B.M. had given a list of her cakes and pastries. Chiffon cakes, and Victoria’s Sponge Cake, and Shrewsbury Cakes (which Spike knew would probably be called cookies these days) fruit cakes, two dozen different period recipes, with little notations about where B.M. found them all. Several were from some professional bakery cook’s notes. Gretchen had scribbled all over the paper. Some of the menu was circled, and some crossed out, and for at least one recipe Gretchen had written over it in red ink, NOT ACCURATE.

    He looked up at Gretchen. “You’re really into this stuff.”

    “Yeah. I want to start my own historical bakery when I finish college. I actually want to do really old recipes, medieval subtleties and the like, but I’d love a Victorian and a Colonial menu, too. That’s why I directed you to Sweet Fantasy. I knew they had the right stuff.”

    Spike tilted his head and regarded the girl. He knew that look. It was the look he used to get when he’d talk about poetry. This wasn’t just something Gretchen was interested in, this was her _passion_. “Can you make spun sugar?”

    Gretchen grinned and lifted up her left hand. There was a small but rather nasty looking burn scar on the back of it. “I got that trying to make spun sugar when I was fifteen,” she said. “The caramel syrup is _reall_ y hot. Also, don’t do it in the kitchen before guests come over, ‘cause the sugar gets everywhere. I’m better at it now.”

    “Tell you what, bit. You think you could make our cake for us?”

    Buffy looked up. “Huh?”

    “I think I may have found our baker, pet,” Spike said to Buffy. “That is, if you think you’re up to it.”

    Gretchen suddenly blushed. “Um. I... well I... I suppose I _could_. I mean... if I had the right recipes. I know royal icing, and I know where to get rosewater, but I don’t have the right baking pans and stuff. Not even at the college.”

    “Forget that,” Spike said. “The shape of it isn’t important. You don’t have the right recipes, you say?”

    “I have some,” Gretchen said. “But I’m missing like... six of hers. I’ve tasted pretty much everything at Sweet Fantasy, and the recipes I have for these things, the ones I circled? They just aren’t the same as what she has. There’s something she’s doing that I just can’t get in a taste test. I asked if she’d let me see her recipes, but she said no.”

    “Yeah, she would,” Buffy muttered. “I’m taking a shower.”

    “Good idea,” Spike said. “Save some hot water, I’ll be in after.” He smiled. “We have somewhere to go tonight.”

  
  
    ***  
  


    “Are you _sure_ this is a good idea?” Buffy asked.

    “No. You want me to get all conscience struck again?”

    “Not really."

    She never thought she’d be back at Sweet Fantasy, never thought for a second that she’d patronize the store where their relationship was questioned and their dreams dismissed like so much garbage. She had been made extremely uncomfortable by Spike’s casual acceptance of the discrimination against him, but having it dropped before her like that, she couldn’t help but realize... BM was being an asshole. But by the same argument, Buffy herself... was... what?

    It didn’t sit right with her. Something was off, and she didn’t want to think about it. When Spike said he wanted to break in and copy out the antique recipes for Gretchen... well. It was easier to jump into action than to try and unpack why she was so uncomfortable.

    “Do you actually know how to do this?” Buffy asked as Spike tried to pick the lock to the back door. Every time a car came by, Buffy cringed, thinking they were about to get caught.

    “Bloody hell, you and Dawn. You want me to just break in the door?”

    “No.”

    “Then let me concentrate,” Spike said. A minute later the door clicked open. “There.”

    “Sure you don’t want to just grab this recipe book and run?” Buffy asked.

    “That’s stealing,” Spike said. “We just want a look at her recipes. Fine line, maybe, but industrial espionage is a little different than plain larceny.”

    “You were more fun before the soul,” Buffy complained.

    Spike glared. “Before the soul I’d have bitten BM’s head off. Literally.”

    “And then I could have staked you with impunity.”

    “Maybe if I wasn’t so sexy and athletic,” Spike said. “Face it, pet, you’re a vamplover. Never gonna get enough of me.”

    Buffy rolled her eyes, but she and Spike were still dancing around that thing she didn’t want to think about. “Should we turn on a light?”

    “I can see,” Spike said. He vamped out for stronger night vision, moving through the back kitchen. “You use the flashlight. Don’t point it toward the windows.”

    Buffy turned on the little handheld flashlight and they started searching the kitchen for recipe books. It took them a little time, but eventually Spike found the notebooks BM used in a cupboard over the marble board.

    “Are these the right ones?” Buffy asked.

    “They have fresh flour on them,” Spike said. “And... here it is!” Behind the well used notebooks was a plastic archive bag. Spike opened it, and pulled out an aged yellowing Victorian cookery book, with some long-forgotten notation from some long-dead baker. “Bring over the flashlight, will you, love? I only need a few of these...”

    Buffy handed him the flashlight, and he began writing down recipes in the notebook Dawn had lent them, in his own “posh” Victorian handwriting. It was cleaner and crisper than the note scribbles in the book, from what Buffy could see. “Your handwriting is different.”

    “‘Course it is. This was a woman,” Spike said absently.

    “You mean men and women were taught different _handwriting_?” Buffy asked. “I thought it was just... class or something.”

    “Probably that, too,” Spike said. “But yeah, women were taught to have a lighter hand, and allow more ornamentation. Besides.” He waved his writing hand. “I’m a deviant, touched by the devil, remember?”

    “You got a fucking soul,” Buffy snapped. “I _told_ her that. That should mean something!”

    Spike looked at her. “I just meant I’m a southpaw, love,” he said. “I was told it was a sign of the devil from the time I was eight.” He went back to his notebook. “Being left-handed was a big deal back then.”

    He stopped and turned a page, starting another recipe.

    Buffy felt weird, making that mistake. She wandered off. She was already bored. She fidgeted and paced and looked out the window, and then did it again. “Aren’t you done with that yet?” she asked, before he possibly could have been.

    “There’s some other recipes in here that BM’s not using, but are pretty rare,” Spike said. “I’m gonna copy them down for Gretch, see if she wants ‘em.”

    “Ugh!” Buffy rolled her eyes. She was bored, but that was a nice gesture.

    She wandered out of the back kitchen and into the front room. There was the table and the comfy chairs she and Spike had sat in just this evening to have their dreams snatched away. Buffy pulled the portfolio out from behind the counter and idly glanced through it. Those were some _really_ nice cakes. It was just... wrong that Spike wasn’t going to get one. The perfect wedding cake. The guy deserved it, after all the shit he’d gone through. Just a cake. Stupid BM. Buffy shoved the portfolio back and accidentally knocked something down. BM’s dumb cross. Buffy tossed it across the room, hoping it would break. It didn’t. She grunted. “You done in there?”

    “No,” Spike said shortly.

    Buffy grumbled and occupied herself with opening and closing the drawers and cupboards behind the counter. Phone book. Stationery. Wooden spoons. Plates and cups. Teapots. More dumb crosses. Buffy glared at them. She didn’t know what flavor of Christian BM was, and she didn’t care. She’d met really, really nice Christians, who thought Spike was the symbol of the ultimate redeeming power of god. What the hell did this bitch know about what Spike was, or what he and Buffy were?

    Dawn’s idea about raising a formal protest or suing or something lingered in the corner of Buffy’s mind, and she knew she wasn’t going to do it. All of Spike’s arguments were accurate, and she didn’t want a cake from this bigot, anyway. She’d probably make the cake with holy water or something. She opened the silver industrial fridge in irritation, expecting to slam it closed again.

    And there they were. Four tiny, perfect little cakes, two of them with a knot of... well, she thought it looked like a cross between cotton candy and spaghetti, so she guessed that was the spun sugar. And perched on the edge of each of them was the little placard, “Summers.”

    These were their cakes. Their sample cakes, ready and waiting to be tasted and tried and judged over and... “Spike?”

    “What?” He sounded really irritated. “I’m almost done.”

    “Come in here.” Buffy wasn’t sure if she was going to cry or scream, and she wanted Spike in here for whatever it was.

    Something about her voice made Spike realize it was serious. He came in, glaring yellow eyed, and then softened when he saw their cakes. His eyes faded to blue. “Those ours?”

    “Yeah,” Buffy said.

    Spike reached up and petted Buffy’s hair. For a long moment they just stood there, arms around each other’s shoulders, staring wistfully at their little denied treats.

    Suddenly Spike grinned. “Here. This is spun sugar, pet,” he said. He snatched the little knot of confection off the top of the nearest cake and pressed it to Buffy’s mouth.

    Buffy tasted it on her tongue. “Oh, god. It’s like... caramel cotton candy or something. Only it sparkles.”

    Spike grinned. “Yeah. It breaks and crackles before it melts.”

    “Wow.” She licked it off her lips. “This is really good. Why doesn’t anyone make it anymore?”

    Spike shrugged. “All the reasons Gretch said, I’ll bet. Messy and dangerous, and it has to be made by hand. Candyfloss is made by machines.” He snatched the other knot of spun sugar and held it with his lips. As his half of it melted on his tongue, he kissed Buffy, who gladly opened her mouth for the yummy bits – which included both Spike _and_ the spun sugar.

    “Mmm...” Buffy said as she finished the sweet kiss. “There’s no way BM will miss that we were here, now, though.”

    Spike shrugged. For himself, he was less upset by the bigotry than he was by how wounded Buffy felt at the slight. Spike knew vampires were evil. Even the question seemed to be making Buffy very uncomfortable. Spike reached into his pocket and threw forty bucks into the fridge. “There. Paid for.” He snagged two of the little cakes, and Buffy grabbed the other two, and they carried their illicit (and yet scrupulously paid for!) prizes to the counter.

    Buffy reached into the drawer she’d found earlier and pulled out a spatula, which she used to cut the first cake neatly in half. This one was covered in a thin layer of marzipan under the icing, with a soft yellow cake underneath it. Buffy knew she should ask what the recipe was, but she didn’t actually care. Spike started in on his piece, and smiled. “Lemon cake,” he said. “Interesting with the almond.”

    “Probably not what I really want at my wedding,” Buffy said. “Not really into sour.” Then she took a bite, and blinked. “Okay. Maybe I’m wrong.”

    Spike chuckled. “From what she said, we’ve also got a traditional fruit cake, a basic Victoria sponge, and pound cake. She offered a chiffon cake, but they really weren’t popular in England. Not then, anyway.”

    “No chocolate?” Buffy asked.

    “I thought you’d prefer that as a side,” Spike said. “Kind of a hot-fudge drizzle.”

    “Oooh...” Buffy said. She liked the idea of a hot fudge drizzle. The idea was so nice she lost track of the piece of lemon cake she had in her hand, and some of it crumbled onto her shirt, and inevitably down her cleavage, and there was no way Spike was letting that slide. He dove for her shirt and unbuttoned it.

    “Gonna have to go fishing, love,” Spike said. “I’m afraid it escaped.”

    “Uh-huh,” Buffy said, not fooled for a moment. She looked up and tried to handle his “fishing for cake” stoically, but he was actively trying to tickle her. She shuddered under his wriggly little tongue. “Gah!” This really, really tickled! She tried to sneak off, but Spike grabbed her, shoving her against the counter. “You _have_ to have gotten it by now!” she squeaked.

    “There’s still some crumbs,” Spike said, his voice muffled. “You know I love crumbs. Every–” he licked at her flesh “–tiny–” he nibbled into her cleavage “–speck.”

    Buffy knew what he was trying to do. It was sweet, but she just... couldn’t. She put him aside, and he let her. “What are we doing, Spike?”

    Spike regarded her in the dim light. “I’m trying to make this fun again.”

    She knew that. It wasn’t working. Buffy stepped forward and put her forehead against his chest, right over his heart. “I don’t know what to do.”

    Spike put his hand over her head. “We’re gonna get married, yeah?” Spike said. “That’s it. That’s all we have to do. Gretch’ll make a cake for us, spun sugar and all, and we don’t have to do jack after that if we don’t want.”

    “You think she’s right.”

    “She’s young, but it’s her passion. I can see it in her eyes.”

    “Not Gretchen. This bitch,” Buffy said, pointing vaguely at the entire bakery. “You think she’s right to hate you.”

    Spike paused. “I don’t think she’s right, or wrong, love,” he said finally. “I think she hurt your feelings, and there’s a part of me wants to rip her to messes for that. And that part of me... is why she hurt your feelings in the first place.” He kissed the top of her head. “I don’t want to think about it, pet. I just want to get on.”

    “With me,” Buffy said.

    “Yes, with you,” Spike said with a chuckle. “What do you think this has been about? Who else am I meant to marry? Xander?”

    Buffy chuckled. “Well, you could,” Buffy said. She finally looked up at him. “But I’m the slayer.”

    “Yeah,” Spike said. “Knew that.”

    “This bitch just doesn’t want to make wedding cakes for your kind,” Buffy said. “And I think she’s wrong. I _kill_ your kind. Doesn’t that make me... worse?”

    Spike’s mouth fell open. Here he’d been thinking she was feeling disgust because she’d been reminded what an evil thing he was. And all night she’d been feeling...? “Oh, god, Buffy. Dear god, no.”

    “But it does, doesn’t it? I’ve slain hundreds, probably thousands of newborn vampires who were just... fresh from the grave. They’d never killed _anyone_. And maybe they were like you, and just needed to be taught how not to kill, and they could have been....” She swallowed. “They could have been like you.”

    “Buffy, you already _know_ better than that!”

    “Yeah, but I really, _really_ hate this woman,” Buffy said. “She’s a self-righteous bigot, and despite all her, _I don’t hate you,_ it is patently obvious that she’s wrong. So what about that makes me right?”

    Spike stared at her. “Buffy, you listen to me. I’m not human.”

    “No, but you _are_ –”

    “No. I’m not. And listen to what I’m saying. My life was about the kill. From the moment I opened my undead eyes and clawed my way out of the earth, I was all about the kill. Didn’t need anyone to teach me how. I knew how to kill from the moment I rose. Yeah, it’s possible, if someone had caught me, and trained me not to, or shoved a soul up my arse while I was still in the graveyard, I might not have. But devils to doughnuts, I would sure as hell have been trying to.”

    “Yeah, but that’s on you. This is about _this_.”

    “No, it’s about _you_ ,” Spike said. “Not your job to turn vampires into fluffy little bunnies, pet.  I’d have had utter contempt for you if I thought it was. Your job was to kill me. That’s what earned my respect. _That_ , Buffy Summers, is what earned my love.”

    “That doesn’t make it right.”

    “It does for a vampire,” Spike said. “That’s what I was trying to say. We’re not _human_ , love, human rules don’t apply. We respect the fight, the hunt, the kill. That’s how we deal with each other, that’s how we want humans to deal with us. The reason this woman seems so wrong is ‘cause she’s trying to apply human law and reason to something that’s no damn concern of hers.”

    “But we asked her to judge.”

    “No, we asked her to make a sodding cake. Something she advertised _as_ her job. Who we are and what we do, that’s not the judgement of some random baker who thinks she’s one-on-one with god. You and me marrying, it gives her willies ‘cause she doesn’t understand. But she’s human, and her job is to make cakes, not pass judgement on them as being god’s will or not. The dance of death? The right of the vampire to kill man, the right of the slayer to kill vampire? That’s _your_ calling.”

    “But you prove that even without a soul there’s more to a vampire than just... killing.”

    “It took me a hundred years for that to be the case, Buffy. And even Angel, even with the soul, he had to fight to stop killing. I still have to fight myself to not kill. It’s a constant battle, slayer. It is. I nearly fanged up and went for that bint’s throat. Or... no, I probably would have just snapped her neck, ‘cause I wouldn’t want her foul blood in me, the bitch.” He sighed, a little wistful. “Would have felt _great_.”

    Buffy found herself chuckling.

    “See, that’s the point, love. I was a killer, and yeah... you made me... better. You and Dawn and the chip and getting off human blood for a while, all those things. It made me see there was more than the kill. And that opened the whole world for me, pet, to the point I needed... more inside me to even see it, so I wouldn’t be so blind that I... buggered up and destroyed something beautiful.” He fondled her hair, caressing her cheek with his thumb. “Like I nearly did once. So I got me this unworthy soul, and I tried to settle it in me, and it sits all right most of the time. But one hundred years ago?” He shook his head. “I tell you now, it would have been kinder to just stake me.”

    “But you _did_ have it in you to change.”

    “And I _did_ kill at least one human being a week until I did,” Spike said. “That’s quite the war of attrition, pet. One semi-redeemed vampire isn’t worth a thousand human lives.”

    “But you’re not the only one,” Buffy said. “It’s not just you and Angel. Harmony, the suck houses, there are lots of vampires who aren’t killing anyone these days.”

    “We still want to.”

    “ _They_ still want to.”

    “ _We_ do. I do, too. I just know better. They know better, too. They’ve made that decision on their own, to preserve their food supply, to keep from being hunted, for whatever. But not your job to plant that idea in any vampire’s head. Every newborn will kill _someone_ , unless you keep them under lock and key. We haven’t the resources to train them up. You’re not Buffy the Rehabilitator. You’re the Vampire Slayer, and that’s why vampires respect you. And by the way, you’re _not_ hunting down Harmony or raiding suck houses. If a vampire acts like a human being, you’ll treat them like one. I love that about you.”

    “I have killed suckers,” Buffy said. “And I have killed newborns who hadn’t ever killed anybody.”

    “Almost every vampire you stake has attacked you, from what I’ve seen, love. But you’re still not hearing me. _You’re the slayer._ You slay us. That’s what you do.”

    “So what makes my prejudice any better than hers?”

    Spike smiled. “You’re one of us, Buffy. Don’t you understand that by now? You walk in the shadows, you have demonic power in your veins, you are _one of us_. Vampires kill each other all the time, it is part of what we are. Her prejudice is that of the outsider, passing judgement on a culture she doesn’t understand. You are a warrior queen, and you are one of us.”

    Buffy stared at him. “You’re telling me I’m more like you than I am like her.”

    He shrugged. “I always thought so.”

    Buffy thought about this. It did feel better than being lumped in with BM and her religious prejudice. She’d been taught by the watchers’ council that she stood in opposition to the vampires, that she was one thing, and they were _other_. But at the same time the watchers ways did avoid human attention as much as possible, putting her into the realm of demons, subject to their demonic trials and retributions. Seen in that light, not as human vs. vampire, but human culture vs. demonic culture, the slayer fell under the auspices of the demons.

    BM... she was other. Saying Spike didn’t deserve a wedding cake was like some old historical white dude looking at a native village and declaring them all savages, so they didn’t deserve penicillin. That was different than one of the natives working within their own culture, and punishing crimes there.

    “It’s still kinda perverted, though,” she said. “A slayer marrying a vampire.”

    Spike smiled wickedly. “Yeah. That’s the icing on the cake.”

    There was only answer to that. “No. This is.”

    The resultant food fight was all but obligatory. Buffy rubbed one of the cakes into Spike’s face, Spike promptly retaliated by smashing it into Buffy’s cleavage, Buffy grabbed the rest of the lemon and pretty much mashed it through his t-shirt, Spike bent her over and tried to shove another one down the back of her shirt, but ended up getting more into her hair. Buffy squealed at that. “Spike! That is not what they mean by a cream rinse!”

    “It’s not?”

    “No!”

    “You sure? I think there was some cream in that somewhere. Let me check.” Spike darted for the back of her neck and growled as he pretended to eat her hair.

    Buffy smacked him aside in the dim light of the street lamp outside, which was starting to strobe red and blue and–

    “Bugger.” Spike grabbed Buffy’s shoulder and shoved her down behind the counter.

    “Cops?”

    “Yep.”

    Buffy hunkered down. Unfortunately, there was only this one little section of the counter that wasn’t glass, and it was only a few feet wide. She and Spike were crammed together like a couple of sardines, trying not to be seen. “We could just wave and act like we belong here.”

    “And if it’s some bloke I work with?” Spike asked.

    “Right,” Buffy said. She’d forgotten Spike knew almost everyone on the force these days. At least everyone who ever worked night shift. “How the hell did they know we were here? It’s not like we were obviously breaking anything.”

    “I might have triggered an alarm or something. Bugger! Don’t move!” He grabbed Buffy’s head and dragged it down to his chest as two steady beams of flashlights passed through the door. They definitely knew someone had entered this bakery who wasn’t supposed to.

    Buffy found herself mashed up against lemon-cake-Spike-chest, and if there was any het girl (or otherwise sexy-male-vampire inclined person) who could resist nibbling on such a thing when mashed up against it, Buffy did not know them. Spike had been trying to tickle her earlier. The muffled _snerk!_ noise that he made as she nibbled at him through his t-shirt proved that she had succeeded in a similar endeavor. Spike’s leg twitched as the flashlights passed over their hiding space, and then passed over again, and he grabbed hold of Buffy’s hair and tried to lift her off him – gently, because letting the cops see the struggle was of course going to defeat the purpose.

    Buffy didn’t let him. She doubled down on the nibbling, adding in her hands for good measure, sliding up along his sides and into his armpits under his coat, and the _snerk!_ was followed by a _Gkkk!_ followed up by a lot of heavy breathing as he trembled, trying not to yell and shake her off.

    “I’m gonna go look around the back,” said a voice at the door, and one of the flashlight beams paced away.

    Buffy hoped this meant the other cop would leave, but no. The flashlight beam played over again, and again, still looking for anything out of place... and shit. There was something out of place. Mashed and squashed cake bits on the counter, clearly not something put there by the proprietor. Still. Lemon-Spike. Buffy opened her mouth wide and bit, and Spike shifted and grabbed her head and shoved it down off all his tickley bits.

    Of course, at this point her face was mashed down quite literally into his crotch, and if he wanted her to behave, that was not the right place to put her. She was slightly hampered by the fact that his jeans were thicker than his shirt, and thus it was much harder to tickle him there, but that was easily solved by simply unzipping them. Spike added a new noise to the collection he had been displaying beneath the counter, in this case something of an _ah! aah! aaah!_ which Buffy found delightful as she worked between the folds of denim to find the soft little knot of flesh and stuck her clever little tongue right on the foreskin, sucking it into her mouth until it drew back revealing its hidden little scepter of Spike-sexyness.

    The cop had gone around the back, and now the two flashlights were playing lightsaber wars, or at least that’s what it felt like as Buffy teased Spike to within an inch of his life beneath the counter. “Would you _stop that_!” Spike hissed.

    Buffy didn’t even reply. Her mouth was full, anyway. She also hadn’t stopped trying to tickle him, too.

    “Breaking and entering, and you want to add indecent expos-ahh!”

    She didn’t think this counted as breaking and entering. They hadn’t really broken anything. Besides, she was still pissed off at BM. The flashlight moved to a different window, and Spike took the opportunity to shove Buffy off him and slam her onto the floor, where he held her down on her face with his whole body. “Quit that!” he hissed in her ear.

    Buffy only undulated her hips so her ass rubbed against his erect cock, and okay, he couldn’t help but thrust against her, but he sounded disapproving while he did it. This went on for awhile, as the cop in the back rejoined the one in the front and said that nothing seemed to be broken. The cop in front mentioned the cakes (as Spike’s hands found Buffy’s breasts through her shirt and pinched at her nipples) and the fact that things didn’t look cleaned up (as Buffy pinched her buttocks to catch Spike’s cock between them) and there had been that disturbance in the alley down the block earlier in the night (which had probably been their little play-fight, and Spike was gnawing on the back of her neck, probably licking the not-cream-rinse off her hair).

    Finally, finally the cops went back to their car, turned off their Official-Business-Flashy-Lights and drove away.

    Spike stood up, grabbed Buffy by the back of the shirt, and lifted her bodily to her feet. “What was with all that, slayer?”

    Buffy only grinned.

    “Oh, you deserve punishment for that, naughty girl,” he said. He grabbed at one of the shelves and pulled up one of the wooden spoons Buffy had seen earlier.

    “Naughty?” Buffy said, feigning innocence. “Me, naughty? Would I ever be – hey!”

    Spike had smacked her ass with the back of the spoon. “Yeah. You gotta be punished.”

    “Hey, _you’re_ the evil vampi– _hey_!”

    Spike pushed Buffy down over the counter and proceeded to spank her deftly, over and over again, and Buffy was laughing too hard to stop him. “You – ow! – you should be worried – hey! – pulling out a wooden spoon around a slayer!”

    “Oh, should I?” Spike growled. He smacked her a few more times, and she just kept laughing, because the whole thing was so ridiculous.

    “Yes!” Buffy finally controlled her laughter enough to shift and grab the spoon from him, holding it threateningly against his chest.

    “I seem to remember this isn’t the first time you threatened to stake me with a wooden spoon,” Spike said.

    “Yeah, well, this time I’m gonna actually do it,” Buffy said. She grabbed him by the front of his (still lemon-cake-flavored) shirt and tipped him over the glass counter, right where he’d just had her.

    “Not afraid of a caning, slayer,” he said, his voice husky.

    “And I said I was gonna stake you,” Buffy breathed into his ear. She grabbed his jeans and pulled them down.

    “Oh,” Spike said. “Oh!” he added as Buffy grabbed a handful of the butter cream frosting off the counter and spread it on the spoon. “Not the spoon end!”

    “Of course not, silly,” she said. “You ready?”

    “Give us a minute,” Spike said, taking in a couple of deep breaths. “Yeah.”

    Buffy started with her fingers, softly nuzzling the little rosebud of his ass, and gently sliding in one finger, in and out with the butter cream, then another, spreading him wider, before she took the wooden spoon and gently ‘staked’ him with it. It was one with a fairly wide handle, and he moaned softly as she slid it in. She shifted it up and down and up and down and then when she felt it was in the proper depth, she straddled it, taking the wider spoon end between her legs and squeezing. Her clit rubbed against the hard wood, as it caught the seam of her jeans and pressed into her. She thrust up against him over and over, and he grunted and gasped and hummed gently, and a few times hissed at her to “wait.”

    She slowed down each time he asked, settling the spoon in more carefully, waiting for the “go ahead,” which he gave her with more of those grunts of pleasure and intensity, and when his breathing changed she reached forward and gave him just one stroke, and he came in her hand with a moan, as if she really had staked him properly. The power in it surged through her, and she thrust herself against his bare ass over and over until she came against him, and she hummed and stepped off the spoon and gently slid it out of him.

    Spike turned and caught her up with a gasp. For a long moment he held her close, breathing hard into her ear, trembling slightly.

    Wooden stakes and power plays and good and evil and Victorian era wedding cakes. Yeah. Made sense. Buffy held him warmly.

    Spike went and finished copying Gretchen’s recipes. While he was doing that Buffy meticulously washed the counter and the floor and, well, the wooden spoon, because as much as she hated that baker and her puritanical judgement of things she couldn’t possibly understand, the cakes had been damned tasty. They deserved respect.

    


	5. Suit

 

 

   “What do you think?” Spike asked.

   Honestly? “ _ Daymn _ ,” said Buffy.

   Spike turned around in the tuxedo, and she held her hands to her mouth, both trying not to laugh, and unexpectedly touched by it. He grinned, and then bowed to her, incredibly formally.

   “Can you even move in that thing?”

   He pulled up a chair, sat in it – parting his tails properly, because he hadn’t a valet to uncrease them – perching on the edge like a little bird. He stood, bowed, and offered Buffy his arm. “This dance, milady?”

   She stood up and let him take her into his arms, in a dance much more formal and staid than the way they usually moved together. “Did you used to wear a tux regularly? ‘Cause you totally rock that thing.”

   “This isn’t a tuxedo, Buffy,” he said, in an accent which was not his. Not as she knew it, anyway. “This is full evening dress, also known as White Tie. If I wanted to denigrate myself to mere black tie and a dinner jacket, then you could call it a tuxedo.”

   The accent and the outfit actually served to make Buffy cringe. Yeah, Spike was hot, and gentlemanly, and this was so totally not Spike. She stepped back. “Were you like this when you were just William?”

   “Nope,” Spike said, his own accent again. “I was nothing this suave then. The sod I was would likely have tumbled over his own feet. There’d have been ink stains on his sleeves, butter-spots on his shirt front, he’d have been all mussed and creased, and would likely have disgraced himself by chatting with the butler. I could never carry off the genteel bollocks.” He went back to his formal accent. “But I have been taught how.”

   “This is too formal,” she said. “Just... way too formal. Just. No.”

   He grinned and kissed her, lightly. “Thought it might be. Wait here. I got a treat for you next.”

   Buffy sat back, feeling like an idiot in the shop, which seemed to handle things a little differently than the Bridal store. Men seemed to expect things to be tailored to fit them, or something. But Spike had arranged for a full selection, he said, of styles for Buffy to peruse.

   Something rang in Spike’s coat. She ignored it at first, but when it rang again, she reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. The number came up as Dowling. Uh-oh. Spike’s boss. Work? Nasties? Buffy answered the phone. “Yeah?”

   “Is that Buffy?”

   “Yeah, Spike’s busy, who’s dead?”

   “No one,” Dowling said. “But I do need both you and Spike to come down to the precinct as soon as possible.”

   “Now?” Buffy asked.

   “Yes, now. Something’s come up.” A loud bray of laughter from somewhere behind Dowling made Buffy frown. “Shut up,” Dowling hissed at his coworker. “Look, it really is important that you both come, immediately.” More laughter echoed behind him.  

   “If this is some kind of surprise wedding shower, we’re  _ really _ not interested,” Buffy said.

   “No,” Dowling said seriously. “I’m afraid we have evidence that the two of you have committed... a crime.”

   Did they kill the wrong demon? Break someone’s begonias? But Buffy was terrified she knew exactly what this was about. “Is this about a bakery? Because that woman–”

   “Buffy,” Dowling cut in. “Just throw a blanket over Spike and come as quickly as you can. It’s important.”

   She slipped the phone back into Spike’s coat pocket as he came out of the dressing room. And Buffy nearly forgot the whole conversation.

   Spike was wearing a kilt. He was in full Scottish formalwear, with a sash and kilt and a really nice black jacket. The ensemble showed off his muscular legs, and his long neck, and Buffy nearly sobbed with it. She jumped forward and kissed him passionately, pressing him back against the door of the changing room, feeling almost like she was about to cry.

   “What is it, love?”

   “Not good. I’ll tell you in a minute.”

   “What are you–”

   Spike didn’t have time to discuss. She had yanked him behind a rack of suit coats and gone to her knees, because Spike, kilt, there was no way she was missing this opportunity. He stared out at the store, trying to keep a neutral expression on his face, but it was going to be a losing battle, because Buffy had started sucking on his cock, (he had, of course, been going regimental) and it quickly made the decision to go for the gold.

   She was in the dark; soft, heavy wool blocking out all light and most sound, and there was nothing beneath there with her but this... Spike’s very own spike. She slid her tongue up the shaft, her hands sliding gently along his foreskin. Really, him being uncut meant hand jobs were so much easier compared to – but no, she wasn’t going to think about anyone else, because she was beneath soft wool, against Spike’s cool legs, with his sweet tasting cock on her mouth, and she loved having power over him like this.

   Smooth, hard, such a beautiful shape. It wasn’t grotesquely huge, either, but it didn’t need to be. It was all it had to be, and it made her happy to see it and touch it and lick it and taste it, and swirl her tongue along the little cleft at the tip, and slide the tip of it inside as if she were fucking him with her tongue. Spike was rigid, trying not to make any movement or sound as she performed her ministrations, but his hand came down, and petted her beneath the wool.

   The cock grew harder and more insistent in her mouth, and Buffy sucked hard to have it all come out. Spike couldn’t contain a grunt, and his hand squeezed on the wool. Buffy gave the lovely thing one last lick before she climbed out of the oppressive wool and into the fresh air of the store. “We have to cut this short,” Buffy said, as if she hadn’t just sucked the life out of him beneath his kilt. “Dowling needs us at the station. It doesn’t seem to be good news.”

   Spike was standing as dazed as if she’d just punched him across the room. “Right. Short. Right.”

   “Spike?”

   “Yeah?”

   “That means you’ll have to change back to your own clothes.”

   “Oh. Right.”

 

***

   They got a cab to the station, and Spike hunkered down under his coat to protect himself from the sun until they could get inside.

   “Ah, Spike. And Buffy, there you are,” Dowling said. “I have something important I need to discuss with you.”

   “If this is about Sweet Fantasy–”

   “All will come clear in a moment,” Dowling said. He sat down. “Now, we got a phone call, and eventually a visit from a baker this morning, one Beatrice McNamara–”

   “I don’t think this is anything to do with paranormal–”

   “When your name came up on file, Buffy, my computer was pinged. I came to deal with the matter personally. And you are both extremely glad that I did. Now. Thank me, both of you.”

   “Why?”

   “Just say thank you now, and then I’ll tell you what for.”

   Dowling had an irrepressible smirk on his face. Buffy and Spike glanced at each other, shrugged, and then said in unison, “Thanks.”

   “Now what was that for, exactly?” Buffy asked.

   Dowling reached over to his computer, as a couple of the other cops chuckled and tried to sidle in behind Spike and Buffy. “Go on, get out of here!” Dowling told them gruffly, but he was clearly still fighting a grin himself. “See,” he said, once the other leering police were back at their own desks, “I’m afraid Sweet Fantasy had a security system in place. Specifically, a camera, and, well....”

   Buffy’s eyes went wide as Dowling pulled up a file. There was no sound, and the vision was grainy from infra-red, but it was clear enough. There was a shape that was fairly clearly Buffy calling someone in from the back room, and an unfortunately recognizable white and black figure came and gazed into the refrigerator at Sweet Fantasy. A moment later the two were snacking on their cakes, and Spike had gone for her cleavage, and – “Turn it off!” Buffy said quickly. “God, turn it off!”

   There was a round of laughter from around the room. Spike put his arm firmly around Buffy and pulled her close. “Laugh it up, you blighters. You know you’re only jealous.”

   That only earned them a round of applause. Buffy wished she could make the floor open up and swallow someone, like a goddamn hellmouth. The question was, did she want the cops swallowed up, or would it be better to just take Spike and disappear forever into a hell dimension?

   “They, ah, actually didn’t see that much,” Dowling said. “I had the decency to not allow copies on anyone else’s computer.”

   They also wouldn’t have seen many details, Buffy was pleased to see, as the counter would have covered up exactly what she had been doing with that wooden spoon but... inference was fairly obvious in this instance. Oh, god! She knew covering her face would only make her predicament even more embarrassing, but she couldn’t help it.

   “In any case, Ms. McNamara is demanding your arrest,” Dowling said. “Actually, she seemed to be wondering if it was possible for us to legally do you both in. She claims her entire store has been sullied, and she will never be able to bake there again.”

   “Sullied, was it?” Spike snapped. “I’ll have you know–”

   “Spike,” Buffy said. “God, don’t. I–”

   “Both of you,” Dowling said. “I’m already aware of the circumstances. Ms. McNamara was very vocal about how she had refused you your wedding cake. I’m uncertain what you were doing in the back kitchen–”

   “Just looking at her recipes, mate,” Spike said. He still hadn’t taken his hands off Buffy’s shoulders. He was holding her very tightly, as if she were about to run away. God, she realized. Maybe she was. Was there any way to persuade her inner demon to suddenly teach her how to go invisible? There was demonic precedent for that, right? Maybe not. Her cheeks felt on fire.

   “So it wasn’t any type of vandalism?” Dowling confirmed.

   “We left the place spotless,” Spike said. “And we even paid for the cakes, which we _ had  _ ordered, by the by.”

   “Well, long story short, I don’t actually want to arrest either of you.”

   Buffy looked up. Hope?

   “What this actually falls under is illegal trespass, and not even particularly egregious. It was a business open to the public, you paid for any damages – taking those cakes counts as damages – and you didn’t otherwise cause any vandalism. This falls under misdemeanor, not felony, and the charge would carry a fine of two hundred dollars.”

   That was less than what they’d been planning to pay for the cake.

   “That’s it, then? Easy,” Spike said. He pulled out his wallet.

   “I’ve already covered it,” Dowling said with a slight grin. “Call it a wedding present.”

   “So why did you want to call us in?”

   “Well, I do need you to sign a few things. But mostly because I wanted to give you this,” Dowling said, handing Spike a thumb drive. “Yes, it is a copy of the footage. And I wanted you to formally witness this.” He closed the paused file of Spike and Buffy making out behind the counter, pressed delete, and then clearly and obviously emptied his computer’s recycle bin. “I confiscated it from Ms. McNamara as well. It shouldn’t end up on the internet.” He grinned at the pair of them. “Glad to see you’re both well prepared for the wedding,” he said with a smirk. “Looks like it should be a very... happy... match.”

 

   ***

 

   Spike was quiet as they climbed the stairs back to their apartment. Buffy hadn’t said a word since they’d left the precinct. “You know, we don’t have to be ashamed of it, love,” Spike finally said.

   Buffy looked up. “Huh? Oh, the video. Well, I admit, I hope it doesn’t end up on the internet, but that’s not what I was thinking about.”

   “What then?”

   “You didn’t get a chance to pick your suit.” It had taken forever finding a time when they could both go, and arranging for the appointment at the store was even harder.

   Spike reached over and pulled Buffy close. “That’s all right, love. I can do it without you.”

   “I don’t want you to.”

   Spike raised an eyebrow. “So she’s killed the fun again, has she?” he said. “You’re making me sorely tempted to go back on my vow not to kill humans.”

   “It’s nothing to do with that bitch,” Buffy said. It all seemed kind of silly now. “I like you as you are.”

   Spike cocked his head. “What do you mean?”

   Buffy traced his face with her fingers, the high cheekbones, the soft lips, the subtle roundness to the edges of his face that made him look so human sometimes. “There’s no suit coat that looks better than the one you’ve got,” she said. “And when you were all... White Tie and formal... yeah. You know how to do it. But it’s just not you.”

   She stepped a little closer, pressing up against him until she was whispering into his mouth. “I want to marry  _ you _ .”

   Spike kissed her, gently, meaningly. “You dress me however you want, slayer,” he whispered back.

   She looked up with a smile. “I will say, I loved the kilt.”

   “You have made a very persuasive argument for me throwing out all of my jeans and switching to a kilt full time, love.”

   Buffy tilted her shoulder coquettishly and headed inside the apartment. “That was the idea.”

   Spike grinned after her. Yeah. He could fight demons in a kilt. No trouble at all.


	6. Music

 

 

   “Good lord,” Giles said. “You don’t want me to officiate. If I were to be in charge of your union I’m afraid I’d handle the entire thing with a great deal of scotch and extreme irreverence.”

   “Sounds perfect,” Spike said. “Look, after what happened with the cakes, I don’t trust looking outside our circle.”

   “Why not? I’m sure there is someone who could...”

   “I just don’t want to go there again. Look. State of California is pretty relaxed about requirements. All you have to do is get ordained in something that counts as a church, and you can preside. All you have to do is sign the papers, send them in, and sign the marriage certificate along with me and Buffy. Look.” He plunked down the marriage certificate and a ordination form.

   “What is this church you’re signing me up for?” Giles asked looking the paper over.

   “Church of the Latter Day Dude,” Spike said. “The Oscar Wildeness of it appealed to me.”

   “What the hell are the principles of  _ Dudeism _ supposed to be?”

   “Take it easy,” Spike said. “That’s it.”

   “ _ I vow to uphold the principles of Dudeism: To just take it easy, to be dude (easygoing) to everyone I meet, and to keep my mind limber. _ Well, I suppose I can get behind that. The limber part.”

   “The scotch should help with that. Will you do it?”

   Giles sighed, cleaning his glasses. “Well. I suppose I could. No  _ real _ reason why not, I suppose.”

   “Thank you!” Spike said, most heartfelt. He handed Giles a pen. Giles filled in the form and ticked the vow and the little box which affirmed,  _ I affirm that this ordination is for me and not for someone else, or my dog or whatever.  _ “Thanks,  _ dude. _ ”

   “You call me that ever again and the deal is off,” Giles said. Spike chuckled.

   “Now, I just have one more question.”

   Spike raised an eyebrow, and Giles lifted up the marriage licence. “Is this true? Your surname is Pratt?”

   Spike glared. “Angel arranged for those papers through Wolfram and Hart. If that doesn’t tell you something about the nature of evil...”

   “But Spike, was that truly your name? William Pratt?”

   Spike’s glare became harsh enough Giles had to clean his glasses again. “I’m choosing Summers,” he said before he left the room.

   Spike couldn’t avoid hearing Giles’s chuckle, even though he left quickly.  

   He headed back downstairs and found Buffy polishing her scythe. “Giles said he’d do it,” he said. “That does mean he won’t be able to give you away, though.”

   “I think I’ve been handed around enough by men,” Buffy said. “I’m doing this myself.”

   Spike came up and put his arms around her, being particularly careful of the wooden end of the scythe. “I’d be more scared of you than your dad with a shotgun any day.” He kissed Buffy’s nose, and she slid the scythe down so she could put her head on his chest. Wedding talk seemed to make her uncomfortable sometimes, and really romantic at others. In either case, the hug was appreciated.

   Spike let her go and helped to gather up the polishing equipment. “You wanna talk vows?”

   “I don’t know,” Buffy said. “I don’t... really don’t know what I want to say.”

   “I have an idea,” Spike said. He didn’t see Buffy’s look, but he could feel her eyes burning in the back of his head. “No, I’m not writing a poem.”

   “Spike–”

   “Public venue,” Spike said.

   “Could I get one later?” Buffy cajoled.

   Spike rolled his eyes. He could never figure out if Buffy was teasing him and just wanted to hear his poetry so she could laugh at him. She did get a big smile on her face, and ask him to read the stuff often enough. It  _ could _ mean she liked it. Or it could just mean she liked seeing him discomfited which... okay, fair enough, there were other things he did to humiliate and debase himself before Buffy in ways that were sexual and not, and vice-versa, and fine, she could see it sometimes. But good god, not in front of a crowd! “Maybe,” he said. “No, I was just going to throw a few things you’ve said to me over the years back at you, and see what you think about them now.”

   Buffy regarded him. “I like that idea. Can I do that, too?”

   Spike turned to her. “We could take turns.”

   “Like some creepy conversation from our past selves.”

   “Sounds terrifying,” Dawn interjected from across the room.

   “Hush up, peanut!” Spike said.

   “Would this mean we have to coordinate or something?” Buffy asked. “So it would make sense?”

   Spike shook his head. “I don’t want you to see it until I say it.”

   “Third party, maybe? Put the things we wanted to throw at each other in order?”

   “I could do it!” Dawn said, eager as a puppy.

   “No offence Dawnie, but I wouldn’t trust you to organize a spice rack, let alone my wedding vows,” Buffy said.

   “Hey! I organized a slayer army just fine!”

   “Death and destruction I trust you with,” Buffy said. “Life and love, you’re a little more stumbly.”

   “That’s  _ really _ rich coming from miss Sea of Bad Relationships,” Dawn said.

   “Hey!” Spike said.

   “Well, I don’t mean  _ now! _ With you all souled up and white hatted and all.”

   “Gee, thanks,” Spike said, rolling his eyes a little. “How about Willow?” he said to Buffy. “She’s good with the turn of phrase. I’ll bet she could sort them for us so they sound good.”

   “Oh, speaking of Willow, she left you a message,” Dawn said. “She wants you to show up at McGinty’s in like an hour.” Dawn looked at the clock. “Or... like twenty minutes.”

   Buffy blinked. “Twenty minutes? Why are we going there?”

   “Dingoes reunion concert she said?” Dawn said.

   Buffy stared at her. “And the reason you didn’t mention this any time in the last  _ four hours _ is...?”

   Dawn shrugged. “Didn’t think of it.”

   Given how Dawn was dressed for a party, Buffy doubted this. She groaned.

   “Come on, pet. Want me to brush your hair out?”

   Buffy sagged. What she wanted was to just go to bed, or curl up with a bowl of popcorn and just not think about anything for a while.

   “Or do you not want to go?”

   “I’ll go. I should go, I should see Oz, he’s not in the States much anymore. I just....”

   Spike already knew. Buffy had been more and more itchy lately, particularly any time the wedding got brought up, and even more so whenever anything reminded her of her past. Oz was in town. This had the potential to get ugly.

   McGinty’s was a tiny little place, with a stage barely big enough for all three of the Dingoes to play on, but for a washed up amateur band, it was kind of impressive that they had found a venue at all. Buffy sat with a rum and coke and Willow, who desperately needed to hold her hand.

   “Are you okay?”

   “Yeah,” Willow said. “I’ve moved on. He’s moved on. There’s other relationships and troubles and things, it’s just...” She swallowed. “You never really forget the first one, you know?” She looked down.

   So did Spike. He knew that was true, and it was okay, and... he ordered another two fingers of Jack. Because he figured he might need it as much as Buffy needed her rum. Which she had already drunk more than half of.

   Spike nodded at the bartender to get her another one.

   “We just haven’t spoken in so long....”

   “I know.”

   “I mean, I’ve kept track of him online and stuff, it’s just he’s had such an exciting life....”

   “And you haven’t?” Buffy asked. She finished her drink.

   “Well... I haven’t traveled like he did. And, you know, I’m... scared... to tell him that the... gay thing didn’t go away. I mean, what if he was so terrible he turned me gay!”

   “That’s not what happened!”

   “ _ I  _ know that’s not what happened, but what if _ he  _ thinks that’s what happened? What if that’s what he’s been telling everyone? What if he’s been thinking this whole time that he turned me off of men? And what if, what if he thinks I was lying the whole time we were together, and I never loved him at all! Because I did, you know. I wasn’t lying about that, I did, and—”

   “Willow, you both just moved on. I know that. You know that. He knows that.” Buffy reached over and stole Spike’s Jack. Spike raised an eyebrow but didn’t stop her. She clearly felt she needed it. She swallowed it quickly while Willow was watching the stage, as if she hoped the witch wouldn’t see, then made an awful face. As always, Spike tried not to laugh. The slayer made such exquisite faces when she was drinking. She was so... damn... cute...! She stuck her tongue out and then tried to control her voice as she continued, “You just need to enjoy the music, and when the time comes, say hi.”

   “But I don’t want to just  _ say hi _ ! But I don’t want to give him the wrong impression or anything. I mean, he’s still important to me, it’s just that it’s not _ that kind _ of important, and I want to be sure—”

   Buffy looked up with gratitude as the next round of drinks hit the table. She grabbed Spike’s second Jack and added it surreptitiously to her rum and coke, and quickly set about drinking that, too. Spike put a hand over his mouth to keep from laughing.

   “— that he’s not holding a grudge or anything for being the one to break his training with the werewolf thing, and—”

   “Will, you already know he’s not holding a grudge. You’ve kept in touch online, right?”

   “Well... yeah....”

   “And it’s not like you’re the reason he’s in San Francisco, right? So you’re just an old friend he ran into.”

   “I know. I... know. I just... I don’t know if I should give him this or not.”

   She put her gift upon the table. She had found a little Pez werewolf for sale one Halloween, and hadn’t been able to resist buying it, and had kept it now for a couple years on the off chance she’d ever see Oz again, and she knew it was silly, and Buffy knew it was silly, and Xander knew it was silly, and even Spike knew it was silly, and he’d barely met Oz, and it didn’t really matter, because it was something that was important to Willow.

   “Will....”

   “I don’t know if he’ll think it means something that it doesn’t,” Willow said. “‘Cause I really  _ don’t _ want to get back together, it’s just when I saw it, I thought... and I couldn’t help it... and now that he’s here... it’s just....”

   Buffy finished her rum and Jack and coke, coughed, and then took a deep breath.

   “Oh, oh, oh, goddess! The set’s ending!” Willow said.

   Indeed the set was ending. The lead singer Devon whispered huskily that the Dingoes would be back in ten, and some canned music started playing over the speakers.

   “Just go,” Buffy said. “Give him the Pez, tell him it’s nice to see him, and let it go from there. Do you want me to come with you?”

   “Yes!” Willow said fervently. Then, “No! No, what... what if he thinks we’re, you know, girlfriends now? What if he thinks I always wanted you like that? What if he thinks that was a lie too, and...!”

   “Want me to come, Red?” Spike asked. “You know he’s not gonna think you had a crush on me.”

   “Well, there was that whole love spell debacle,” Willow said, but the panic had finally left her voice. She seemed to have realized she was brewing a tempest in a teapot. Spike stood up with her and escorted her quietly over to the side of the stage, where Oz was chugging down a bottle of water. Spike found this remarkably familiar.... There was a time when a young woman could not cross a room without being escorted. The rules were hell, but sometimes... sometimes they would have made things easier. There wouldn’t have been any questions about what was right or wrong or could have things misinterpreted in this instance if they’d all been following Victorian guidelines for propriety.

   Willow needn’t have worried, even. Oz took one look at her, grinned broadly (or what seemed broad for him, since the guy hadn’t had a single expression during the entire set) and said, “Hey.”

   “Hey.”

   Chattery Willow seemed to have completely lost her voice, but Oz’s cool was catching. “Saw you decided to catch the show.”

   “Yeah. Yeah, I’m hip to the cool jives,” Willow said. “You enjoying your stay?”

   “Yeah, mostly. Devon’s kids are loud.” He looked up at Spike. “Hey.”

   “‘lo,” Spike answered. He looked across the pub. Buffy was at the bar, ordering yet another drink. She was quite determined to get soused, it would seem.

   It was quickly apparent that Willow did not need Spike there at all. She and Oz were chatting like old college buddies — which technically they were, with some sex thrown in too — without any awkwardness. She gave Oz the werewolf. He chuckled. Spike fidgeted.

   What was he doing here? “You good, love?” he asked Willow, who nodded enthusiastically. Spike nodded an acknowledgment at Oz, who nodded back, and then hit the bar. Buffy had left. Bathroom? He ordered another Jack, since really he’d only had one so far, and leaned back against the bar awaiting the Slayer. Who... ah. There. The next set had started, Dawn was pulling Xander up to dance, Willow was perched now almost at the foot of the stage in a “Yeah. I’m with the band,” kind of way. And there was Buffy, coming out of the bathroom with an almost beatific smile on her face.

   “Spiiike!” she said when she came up close enough.

   “Hey, there, pet. You come here often?”

   Buffy laughed. “Mmm... not often enough.” She came up and snuggled against his chest. She stank of liquor, and her muscular body was soft and pliant with the drink.

   “Mm....” Spike said, kissing at the top of her head. She tilted her head back and grabbed randomly at his lips with hers, kissing him slightly woozily. “I like Spike,” she said when she fell off his lips.

   “You’re drunk,” Spike said with a grin.

   “Mm-hm,” Buffy said through her smile. “And I intend to stay that way, and dance with you.” She grabbed his hands. “Dancing with Spike.”

   “Your drink,” said the bartender behind him.

   Buffy reached past him and grabbed it. Spike glared. Damn slayer speed. Even drunk. “Ah, ah, don’t you think you’ve—”

   “Nope. Not had enough, Spike. Never having enough. Not of you. And not of this.” She tossed the whiskey back and... he expected a face. She didn’t make a face. Oh, damn, she was  _ really  _ drunk. “It’s really a lot easier to drink when you’re already drunk,” she said philosophically.

   Spike couldn’t keep the grin off his face, even though she’d cadged his whiskey. There was nothing for it, drunkBuffy was adorable. Absolutely, heartrendingly, undeniably adorable. “Yeah, it is.”

   She beamed up at him again. “I was doing something... I was... I was... dancing! I was dancing with you.”

   “Were you?”

   “Mm-hmm,” she said. She dragged him out onto the dance floor and turned around, leaning backward against him, her head up onto his chest and swaying — well, sort of gracefully staggering — to the music. She wrapped Spike’s arms around her, and he held her close, nuzzling her hair.

   “You having fun, pet?”

   “I feel happy,” she said quietly. “And relaxed. And good and happy and Spike. I likey the Spikey. I llllike you,” she said. “I love you,” she added, as if that was something incredibly bizarre. She tilted her head back and looked up into his eyes. “Did you know that? That I love you? Did you really?”

   “I think I’m starting to get an idea in that direction.”

   Her smile returned and she twisted in his arms to face him, nearly spilling out of them into the floor. Spike held her up. “Hey, now.”

   “No, no, I’m fine,” Buffy said. She stood up for a second, the slur fading from her voice and the sway from her stance. “See, I could fake it if I had to.” She did sound almost sober. Then she melted back against him and hummed contentedly. “Don’t, don’t, don’t wanna.”

   Spike chuckled. Far be it for him to deny her a happy drunk. He held her in his arms and kept her upright while she sank and swayed and arched with the music. He figured if he wasn’t holding her up she’d be rolling around on her back like a kitten on catnip. Which would be pretty damn cute at home, but she’d probably regret doing in a public setting like this, in front of Dawn no less. But she kept falling against him, and burying her nose in his chest, and reaching up for soft-lipped kisses, and she tasted amazing. Then, in utter abandon, she climbed up him like he was a tree, wrapped her legs around his waist, and looked down into his face. “I’m gonna marry you, did you know that?”

   Spike grinned. “Yeah. I think I heard that somewhere.”

   “Gonna marry a vampire. With a soul. And a leather coat. And pretty, pretty,  _ pretty _ blue eyes.” She kissed him. “And you’re gonna kiss me, right?” she asked, kissing him again. “Kiss? And again? And you’re gonna love me?” The whispered words between the kisses were sounding slightly panicked now.

   The desperation in her voice was starting to trickle inside him, and was making it a little hard to just stand there on the dance floor with her legs wrapped around him like that. “Yeah,” he whispered up at her. “Yeah, I’m gonna marry you.”

   “And you love me?”

   “Love you beyond anything,” he said between her kisses.

   “And you’re never gonna leave me, right?” She looked down into his face. “Not gonna go running off for my own good or whine I don’t need you enough or turn this all into some dumb game of gamey things? This is all real? You’re real?” She fell back into a kiss so passionate and so desperate it was as if she’d grabbed hold of his heart and squeezed.

   Spike pulled away a little, gasping for the air he didn’t, in theory, need. They were starting to draw looks. Particularly from Xander....

   “Come on, pet.”

   “No, no, no, I want you.”

   “You got me, love. Let's go sit down.”

   He set Buffy lightly on her feet, took her hand, and she followed him docilely to the edge of the dance floor. Then, as he was about to set her down into her chair, she stopped being docile at all and dragged him past their table, back along the edge of the dance floor, to the little room at the back where the lottery machines were stashed.

   It was semi dark inside, and there didn’t happen to be anyone in there playing KENO, since everyone was listening to the live band, but there wasn’t any door or anything. Buffy didn’t care. “Me want drunksex,” she said.

   “Do you, now?”

   “Yep.” She started lifting up his shirt to scratch at his chest, grunting a little.

   Buffy sometimes did this when she got drunk. She said it was a joke. Xander said it might have been a throwback to a spell she was put under when she was still in college. Spike was inclined to believe she just enjoyed playing, and Cave-Buffy was a game she enjoyed when incredibly soused.

   “Want, want, want now, Spike, mine. My vampire. Pretty Spike vampire. Real, real, real Spike mine.”

   “Mm... yeah, baby. Yeah, I’m real enough for you.”

   She was already fumbling for his trousers, and wow, she was not wasting any time. Her passion was infectious. They’d established years ago, while sober, that so long as the details were all something the two of them had done before, drunk sex was all a-go, no matter who was too pissed to even talk straight. Which meant that setting Buffy up on the table by the KENO machine and reaching up her skirt was obviously the next move.

   Spike went to shove her panties aside, only to find that she wasn’t wearing any. So that was what she’d been doing in the bathroom.... which made her climbing him like a jungle gym on the dance floor a little more risque. He hoped she hadn’t been showing, and that was why Xander had been looking. He himself had been a little too preoccupied with her lips.

   Though, he had other lips to go for now. He dove between her legs, nuzzling and tickling at her clit with his tongue, and she leaned back on her arms on the table, spreading wider for him, her butt sliding and then sticking on the slick surface. She made tiny bestial moaning sounds, devolving even from cave creature into pure animal. God, she tasted good. But she was actually grabbing at his head now, and lifting him up. He was dragged back up to her lips, and she kissed him, kissed him again and again, and then grabbed at his jeans again, and oh, fuck it.

   Literally. Fuck it. So much for foreplay, she’d drunk it away already. He put his hand around her hips and pulled her closer to the edge of the table, and she was so damn wet and ready he was inside her before he’d barely touched her. She moaned as he entered, and she thrust her hips against him, the table shaking under her movement.

   Spike tried not to groan loud, but Buffy was too drunk to care, and god, but the sounds she made were like sex itself, he could get off just listening, even if he’d been unable to touch her. He kissed her, her lips soft and drunk, and she gasped and grabbed and thrust against him and...

   Fuck! The table broke. The music was pretty loud, so it sort of didn’t matter, but he didn’t want to stop if someone was coming to investigate, and... god dammit! He pushed Buffy backwards across the floor, until they were mostly behind the side of the KENO machine, squashed up against the wall, which didn’t give them much space, but made it a little less likely that anyone would be staring directly at them as she flopped onto her back and grabbed at his hips again, pulling him forward. Spike went up on his knees, and she wrapped her legs around his hips and squeezed, juddering against him, whimpering even louder now.

   “That’s it, pet. Yeah. Got you. Got you....”

   “Don’t stop,” she whimpered. “Mine. My Spike, mine.”

   “Mm-hmm,” he said, letting her down. He surged forward so he could look down into her face. “All yours.”

   She moaned, so softly it took him a second to realize she was coming, but it was so drunkenly prolonged he couldn’t help but grin. And somehow, she’d managed to hit right on key to the song that the Dingoes were belting out on the stage around the corner. It was so... so... beautiful. Oh, yeah, that had to have been a good one. If he just... kept... going..... He slowed down, sliding in and out, never stopping, never relenting and... and... there, was it... yeah! She broke key, creaked, squealed even, writhing against him, then gripped him so hard he shouted, trying to keep it in time with the chorus of the song on the speakers.

   Then Spike heard another noise. Not the music. Someone... someone was walking past....

   He froze in the shadow behind the KENO machine, but Buffy kept making little thrusts, and he tried to hold her still.... It was one of the bartenders. He went past... hit the back supply closet next to the lotto room...

   Spike looked back down at Buffy, who giggled. There was a time before the soul when he probably would have just kept going, audience or not. Modesty sometimes slowed things down.... But god, this felt naughty, when it wouldn’t have before, and that was a bonus, right? so— He pushed hard against her and had to bite back the groan as the bartender walked right past them again carrying a package of paper towels. And Buffy squeezed her cunt tight around him just as the man went past! Spike’s eyes went wide, and he had to hold his breath for fear he’d scream out. He squeezed at Buffy’s arm, probably hard enough to bruise her, but she just grinned, and when the man had gone back out into the crowd she laughed in earnest.

   He let the breath out, and it was as if the orgasm hadn’t stopped until that second when he did. He gasped, glaring down at her. Buffy just looked mischievous.

   “Evil, wicked drunkBuffy,” Spike whispered to her.

   “Hungry, lovey drunkBuffy,” Buffy cooed back at him, her voice kittenish and playful.

   He groaned and kissed her, and she kissed him back with all drunken abandon, then sat up and pushed him against the wall. Ah. Apparently she wasn’t finished yet.

   She straddled him as he sat there, kissing and kissing and kissing at him. The Dingoes’ music shook the wall behind his head. “I’m gonna keep you,” she whispered. “I’m gonna keep you forever and ever and ever.” Kiss. “And I’m gonna wake up beside you,” kiss, “and snuggle you,” kiss, “and I’m never gonna put any more jewelry on you ever ever again,” kiss, “because I’m gonna keep you,” kiss, “and kiss you,” kiss, “and marry you,” kiss, “and make you all mine, forever, no backsies promise mine.”

   She stopped kissing him then, and she stared at him with such terror on her face his heart hurt. He held her cheek. “Yeah, love. All yours, no backsies. I’m safe, eh?”

   “Promise?”

   “Promise.”

   She looked as if she was about to cry. “No dying until we do this.”

   “Deal.”

   She closed her eyes and fell into his hand. “Thank you,” she whimpered.

   “What for?”

   “The soul. So I know if I lose you I can find you again.”

   God. She was really scared. He put his arms around her and pulled her in close. “Hey. You’re not gonna lose me. We’re together, yeah?” He kissed her cheek. “We’re together.”

   Buffy sagged, and he knew her drunk had changed. She’d gone from happy randy drunk to sleepy possibly weepy drunk. It was time to get her home.

   The band switched to another song. He lifted her up and made sure their clothes were arranged properly as she hung on him. “Hey, whoops,” he said as she sagged again standing up. “Can you walk?”

   “Maaay-be,” she said quietly.

   “Okay, I need you to fake it until I get you outside.”

   She growled low. “Fine,” she said ruefully. She took in a deep breath, forced her drunken muscles into some semblance of order, and linked her arm around his so that no one would see she needed him to walk a straight line.

   He walked her out through the pub, and ran into Dawn and Xander on the way. “Hey, she okay?” Xander asked.

   “I’m fine,” Buffy said, but she sounded exhausted.

   “Just one too many, I’m taking her home,” Spike said. “You’ll get the others back?”

   “Yeah, I got it,” Xander said.

   “Oh, and, uh... tell Red to pick me up one of those CDs the wolf’s mate is hawking,” Spike said. He pressed a twenty into Xander’s hand for the purchase price. “I think I might have grown fond of a couple of these songs.”

   He wasn’t lying. The memory of Buffy’s drunken surrender was a pleasant one. He’d have to see if he could get Buffy to hit that key again.... Hell, maybe he could play one or two of the songs at the reception.


	7. Gifts

 

 

   Buffy and Willow entered the apartment complex, Willow carrying the bouquet in a box. “I’ll put this in the fridge,” Willow said. “You should get some rest.”

   “I’m fine,” Buffy said. “Are you sure the bouquet will last till the wedding?”

   “I can put a stasis spell on it, if you’d really like.”

   “No, it’s fine,” Buffy said. “If the florist thinks it’ll last till Friday, it’ll last. Just... it seems so...”

   “It’s fine, Buffy!” Willow said.

   “Sure you don’t want me to pay for that? Or, well, Spike, since I’m kinda broke....”

   “No! We all agreed. For gods’ sake, if your friends can’t pay for the flowers at your wedding what the hell are friends for? This _and_ the decorations.”

   “Yeah. Decorations. Right.” Buffy frowned. The bouquet was gorgeous, but Willow hadn’t let her see the bill.  It was nearly dark. Spike would be getting home soon. The marriage arrangements were getting a little silly, in Buffy’s opinion. That flower arrangement was heavy. Her bouquet was insane, it had felt like holding a mace or something. And what the hell decorations was Willow talking about? She knew Willow loved to decorate for parties, and Xander and Dawn both loved having decorations at parties, and... Buffy had given up on that sort of thing years ago.

   It was just getting too big.

   There was a brown paper package in the doorway to Spike’s apartment, and she nearly tripped over it. It had a US postage stamp, a California postmark, and a big red PERISHABLE sticker on three sides. She nearly didn’t notice it amongst all the other changes to the hallway – the stage that had been set up on the side by the stairs, the chairs which were arranged along the walls, the festoons and ribbons and little white doves – who had done this? Dawn or Willow? – which graced the ceiling. There were even other flowers already, and wasn’t that jumping the gun a little? They weren’t in the fridge, they were gonna wilt before the wedding. Ugh.

   Seriously, everyone else was much more interested in this wedding than Buffy was. She just wanted to get married and get the legal bit out of the way. ( _Don’t you see any romance in this at all, pet?_ said a tiny voice inside her, that sounded like Spike. _Shut up, I don’t dare,_ she said back.)

   Still, more stuff to handle. She picked up the box and carried it inside. It was just addressed to Spike but that PERISHABLE stamp made her think it probably needed to get into the fridge, too. Buffy ripped off the brown paper and found inside a Styrofoam box, such as you’d find in a grocery store as a cheap beer cooler. She frowned, and lifted the lid. She heard a car outside – probably Spike getting back from work.

   The cooler was half full of half melted ice. Had Spike ordered some kind of fancy cheese or something? Buried in the ice was an opaque plastic container, like a leftovers box. Buffy dug it out, and peeled off the lid. And felt sick.

   It was to her credit she wasn’t shocked or horrified. She was the slayer. This was just par for the course. But she was still disgusted. “Spike!” she yelled, loud enough that she knew he’d hear her even from outside, if that car had been him.

   The thump of running feet indicated that it was, and he had, and she examined the viscera before her as he came. Okay, she identified it as a heart, possibly two or more hearts, sort of sliced open and crudely stitched together in some kind of gruesome elementary school art project. They were plonked down in the middle of some cold and congealed blood, little clots glimmering in the light. It smelled... well, not terrible, actually, cause the ice had kept it from decaying, but the strong acrid scent of the blood was pervasive. “Spike!” she called again, turning, and then bit back the call as she saw him burst into the apartment, fists clenched.

   “What’s wrong?”

   “Someone’s sent us a warning,” she said. “Is it human?”

   Spike paused and sniffed, then shook his head. “Venison,” he said, to her considerable relief.

   Still didn’t alleviate her disgust. “Who’s threatening us? _Why_ are they threatening us, what are they warning us off of?”

   “Was there a note?” Spike said.

   “No, just brown paper with this address and your name.”

   “Why’d you open it?”

   “Perishable sticker, and you weren’t home yet,” Buffy said. “Thought it was flowers or something for the wedding.” She handed him the wrapper.

   Spike suddenly smiled as he examined the handwriting. “‘S not a warning, love.”

   “What?”

   “It’s a wedding gift.”

   “From who? Some madman with a sick sense of humor?”

   “Close,” Spike said. “I think it’s from Dru.” He held out the brown paper. The handwriting was clunky as a child, but it was cursive. “Her hand.”

   “Okay, first off, _how_ , and second, are we in any danger? And third, _EEWW_!”

   “How, is it’s Drusilla, pet,” Spike said. “I’d be more surprised if she _didn’t_ know where I was. She’s my sire, ‘member? Second, I don’t think so. If she wanted any of us dead, she’d have come in person.” Then he chuckled. “As for third, I think this is her idea of romantic.”

   “Ugh! Yuck! How?”

   Spike shifted the macabre patchwork until Buffy could clearly see it. The two stitched together hearts made a clear and perfect heart shape, she just hadn’t been able to see it amidst all the clotted blood. “Nice of her to remember I don’t eat human anymore,” he said.

   “Oh, gross, Spike. Not today. I don’t want to get into this today. Are you actually planning to eat that?”

   “She went to a lot of trouble, love. I’ll bet she killed the deer herself.”

   “How touching?” Buffy tried.

   “I’ll bet they were harts,” Spike said. “Sounds like her mind games. Hearts, harts, hearts. Yeah. Blood’s still good.”

   “Spike. This is just a little too vampire for me.”

   “Hey, you don’t mind it when it comes in a jar from the butchers, and I see you with a rare steak all the time.”

   “It’s different, Spike. It just is, okay?”

   “She might get offended if I didn’t, pet. She’d probably know.”

   “Fine,” Buffy said. “Enjoy your venison. Knock yourself out. I’m gonna go... elsewhere. And do... other... things. Not... not vampire things. Ew.” She shuddered on her way out the door. “Ew.”

   Spike let her go and smiled down at Drusilla’s offering. “She can’t understand, love,” he said, as if Drusilla could hear him – which, maybe, she could, if she were in the right vision. Wherever she was. He took up one of the wine glasses and tilted the extra blood into it, setting it by the heater to warm up. Then he took up the heart in one hand. “Cheers, pet,” he whispered to his former. He sank his fangs in and sucked.

   Buffy, meanwhile, had gone out to the hall and caught Xander as he was about to go into his apartment. “Don’t. Just don’t go in there, Xander. Spike’s being a vampire.”

   Xander looked surprised. “He’s... wait, is he killing again?”

   “Only Bambi, but it’s pretty bloody. Come on.”

   “I wanted a shower.”

   “Use ours.”

   Xander shrugged. “Why not? You use mine all the time. Please clarify, who’s Bambi?” he asked as she led him into the apartment.

   “Just a deer or two. Drusilla sent a _wedding present_.”

   Xander shuddered. “Okay. Enough said.” They went up the stairs over into the other apartment, where it was Xander’s turn to be startled. Buffy was right behind him. “Faith?” Xander asked.

   “Hey there, Xanman, B.” Faith was sitting on the couch sharing exploits with Dawn and Willow.

   “What are you doing here?”

   “Came for the wedding!” Faith said, jumping up over the couch. “Thought I’d get my good wishes in, if that’s what you want to call ‘em.”

   Buffy stared at her. Xander looked nervous and excused himself quickly to the bathroom. Buffy knew there were a lot of things she really didn’t know about what had happened between Xander and Faith. Whenever the woman was brought up, he got, as Spike put it, squirrelly. “How did you know there was a wedding?”

   “I sent out invitations,” Dawn said. “Wasn’t I supposed to?”

   Buffy stared at Dawn. “You sent invitations?”

   “Well, sort of. When I asked, you just shrugged and said there wasn’t really time to order invitations so–”

   “No, I said this wasn’t _the time_ for invitations. As in, I wasn’t inviting people.”

   “Oh.” Dawn looked worried. “Are... you mad?”

   “I don’t know,” Buffy said, really unsure. “So... who did you invite?”

   “No one, really. I mean... I just called a bunch of people, and told them you were getting married this Friday.”

   Buffy stared at her in horror. “Just called a bunch of people. Like what bunch of people?”

   “Well... everyone,” Dawn said. “The girls in Rome, and the academy in Scotland, and the coven in Devon, and... and Faith, and... um...”

    _“Everyone?”_

   “Well, I just told them the day!” Dawn protested. “It’s not like they all said they were coming. Riley specifically told me he didn’t plan on–”

   “You called _Riley_?” Buffy said with a bit of a shriek.

   “Maybe I should... um... go hit up G-man,” Faith said. “Haven’t seen Giles in ages. Um... that’s... ah. That’s for you.” She pointed to a wrapped present on the table by the door.

   “You didn’t have to get me a gift,” Buffy said glumly. “But thanks.”

   “I didn’t. That’s from Angel,” Faith said, and Buffy winced. “He’s not coming, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Faith added.

   Buffy closed her eyes. Thank heavens for small favors.

   “Right. I’ll just... go see Giles then. Congrats, B. I really am happy if you are.”

   “I’m happy, all right?” Buffy said. “I’m delirious. Thanks for coming.”

   After Faith scuttled upstairs, Buffy turned on Dawn again. “Dawn.”

   “It’s not just her,” Willow said. “I thought you’d want people to see you were getting married. I mean, we used to talk about it. Big wedding, lots of guests, elegant white dress, the whole thing.”

   “We talked about it when you were still making wedding plans about Xander!” Buffy snapped. “And I hadn’t even cottoned to Angel being a vampire yet, let alone moved on from him.”

   “We talked about it after that,” Willow said. “I’m sure we did.”

   “Not very seriously,” Buffy said. She went to the kitchen and started shoving dishes around more than actually cleaning them. She needed something to do with her hands.

   “Well, _I_ want people to know my sister’s getting married,” Dawn said. “It’s bad enough having a freaky, violent sister without having them think she’s an unfeeling bitch, too.”

   Buffy whirled on her. “Excuse me?”

   “You heard me,” Dawn said, with a bit of a smirk on her face, to show she’d been teasing. Buffy rolled her eyes. “Come on, Buffy, I just called our friends and told them you were happy. What’s wrong with that?”

   “Did you call Dad, too?” Buffy snapped. “Because he’s not invited!”

   “I... did call Dad,” Dawn said, in what had become a very small voice. “He said he was happy for you, but....”

   “But he’s not coming,” Buffy said for her.

   Dawn didn’t answer. Buffy dropped her dirty pot into the sink with a clang. She’d just had one of the best things about this wedding shot in the skull. The joyous pleasure of having a wedding and simply _not inviting_ the guy who had abandoned her and her mother to a life of death and... and penury, as Spike would have called it. It was going to be wonderful. She’d had it all planned out. She’d see him in a year or so, maybe Dawn’s graduation or something, and casually mention her husband. Or maybe Dawn would see him, or he’d hear about it from some distant third party, and they’d say that Buffy was married. And he hadn’t even been told. And then there her father would be, with the knowledge that Buffy had abandoned him as much as he had abandoned her. To know that he hadn’t even been invited to the wedding. That was cold. She’d wanted him to _feel_ that cold.

   And now that chance was gone.

   “Why did you invite him, Dawn?” Buffy demanded.

   Dawn looked down. “We haven’t seen him in a while. I thought... maybe... with your wedding he might....”

   That was the whole thing, right there. Dawn had wanted to see Hank. She’d just wanted to see him, and the wedding had been the perfect excuse. But she couldn’t invite _just him_ to the wedding, so she’d invited everyone, in the hope that he’d actually deign to show up.

   Damn it. This wedding really wasn’t about her and Spike, was it? It was about everyone else, too, whether Buffy wanted that to be the case or not. Buffy held out her arm. Dawn stepped forward and hugged her. “I wasn’t gonna tell you,” she said.

   “I already know,” Buffy said. “If he’d said he was coming, then I would have been surprised.”

   “He said he’d send a gift.”

   “I don’t want anything. Whatever he sends, you take it.”

   “Buffy–”

   “Please!” Buffy said. “You deserve it more than I do. I’m getting Spike out of the deal, after all.”

   “I’m getting Spike too,” Dawn said. “I always thought of him like a big brother, anyway.”

   “Speak of the devil,” Buffy said.

   “Meaning me?” Spike asked with a grin as he came in the door. He paused and sniffed. “Do I smell another slayer?”

   “Faith’s up with Giles,” Dawn said. “What did you need?”

   “You lot got any onions? Bell peppers?”

   “I got some,” Willow said. She came into the kitchen and dug a few vegetables out of the back of the fridge.

   “I’m gonna go catch up with Faith,” Dawn said. “See you, Spike!”

   “Here,” Willow said, handing Spike his bell peppers. “Onions are in the basket by the sink.” A small beep went off on Willow’s wrist, and she glanced at her watch. “Damn! I’m late for a Wicca meeting. The coven is trying to arrange for your wedding night to be clear, Buffy.”

   “It’s California,” Buffy said.

   “And between haze, pollution, and yes, occasionally rain, it’s hard to see the stars. Don’t worry, it’s just weather patterns. We rearrange, don’t stop or start. Mostly I’m teaching the other girls how to do it.”

   “Well, don’t forget–”

   “Grounding and ethics, I remember,” Willow said.

   Spike finally dug out an onion as Willow went to her meeting.

   “Are you trying a new flowering onion recipe, Spike?” Buffy asked.

   “Something like that. What’s with the cookies?”

   “Huh?”

   Spike gestured with his chin at the box by the door. “We’re gonna have cake at the reception, pet. What do you need cookies for?”

   Buffy blinked and dove for the package, opening it up without deference to the pretty packaging. Sure enough, inside was a large selection of gourmet cookies, with some kind of foreign name on the box. It looked like it cost a mint, but... they were cookies. Just cookies.

   Buffy lifted the lid on the box and found a single card with a silver border resting atop the confections. On it was a single word, in the elegant hand that Buffy recognized as Angel’s. (She could never forget his creepy Valentine’s day roses with the promise of “ _Soon!_ ”) In this case, the single word was less of a sinister promise, and more something... rather sweet.

    _“Enjoy._ ”

   Buffy was unexpectedly touched. She held her hand to her mouth, trying to smother a smirk of _Aww!_

   Spike sighed. “That’s from Angel?” he said. “I can’t figure out if this is damning with faint praise, or some sort of really creepy threat.”

   “It’s not a threat,” Buffy said.

   “Right, because ruining your diet with butter cookies is really something you’re going to love. Maybe he’s hoping you won’t fit into your wedding dress, and will call the whole thing off. Like it wouldn’t take lots more than that to ruin your lovely physique,” Spike said, sliding his hand down her hip.

   “I break my diet all the time,” Buffy said, which was true. She had no staying power when it came to slimming, and she was fortunate that diet sodas and salads seemed enough to keep her trim. Lucky slayer metabolism. “Besides. These aren’t for me. They’re for you.”

   “Huh?”

   Buffy picked up a cookie and slid it into Spike’s mouth. “Just trust me,” she said. “They’re for you.”

   Spike munched on the crisp wafer, and looked at Buffy in bewilderment. “Just when I think I have you figured out, slayer.”

   Buffy grinned and snatched up a cookie for herself. “We’ll just enjoy them, how does that sound?”

   “Like a plan,” Spike said. He kissed her cheek, his breath sweet. “Save room for dinner.”

   Buffy rolled her eyes. Spike’s skill in the kitchen varied, and could be exquisite, or very strange. He hadn’t really learned how to cook until a few decades ago, and he’d never done it as a human. He had a taste for lots of spices, and really rare meat. He took up Angel’s cookies and slid out the door.

   “Faith still here?” Xander called from the bathroom.

   “No.”

   “Good.” He came out in a towel, with only his shirt open around his shoulders. He’d taken off his eye-patch, something he’d only started doing around Buffy in the last year, as things had gotten less and less formal, and more and more like extended family around the apartment complex. Buffy actually thought he looked cute without it. Constantly winking, or maybe just very sleepy. But he liked the look the eye-patch gave him, even though Buffy was fairly sure he got just as many stares when he had it on as not. “I heard Spike a minute ago, is he done vamping out?”

   “Yeah, I think so,” Buffy said. “I think he’s flowering onioning.”

   “Good. I wanted to ask him some questions about that shelving unit.”

   “What shelving unit?”

   “The one he asked for, for a wedding present.”

   Buffy rolled her eyes. “Is everyone getting more into this wedding than I am?”

   Xander stopped. “You’re not having second thoughts, are you?”

   “Down, boy, everything’s fine,” Buffy said. “I’m not you.”

   “It’s just... I know how it can all look a bit overwhelming when it all starts to close in on you.”

   “It’s not closing in on me, you make it sound like a pack of demons!”

   “Well... it is, isn’t it?”

   “No!”

   Xander looked away. “Kinda was in my case. Look, just... promise me if it all gets too much for you that you’ll talk to me before you do anything rash. Anything at all.”

   “Like skip out at the altar?”

   “Or run out naked, or start swinging stakes, or just want to scream,” Xander said. “Really. You can have all kinds of really wigged out impulses when things start to get real.”

   “Xander. I really am fine. I’m not having second thoughts about Spike, and we’re getting married for a _reason_. Not because of some romantic dream that it will finally make one of us really human.”

   Xander blinked. He went white. “Sorry I brought it up.”

   Buffy felt bad instantly. As Xander started to go out the door, Buffy followed and grabbed him. “Wait!” she said.

   He stared at her, his single eye a quiet brown pool of pain. Anya wasn’t just his biggest mistake, she was also his deepest grief, and she knew that. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry, I really am sorry.”

   Xander put his arm around her and hugged her, keeping his other hand firmly on his towel. “I get it, Buffy. You’re really stressed out, and you shouldn’t have to be. It’s gonna be fine.”

   “I just didn’t expect there to be guests. How many slayers are coming? Who else has heard? Is this going to get out and be some kind of blood bath? I mean, seriously, Spike and I have a lot of enemies!”

   “Dawn only called friends, Buffy.”

   “And some of those friends are sort of enemies!” Buffy pointed out. “Are you seriously telling me you weren’t wigged out to see Faith sitting here?”

   “I’ve mostly gotten over the whole Faith thing,” Xander said. “We’ve managed to work together.”

   “Yeah, well, you shouldn’t have to get over having to hang out with someone who... attacked you like that, and... and... made your first time... ugly.” She stopped. She’d been thinking a lot about Faith and Xander since she’d sort-of-moved-in with Spike, and the more she thought about it, the less she liked. It had finally occurred to her that the whole reason Xander had been so _he tried to rape you!_ about Spike might have been because of Faith. He knew how that felt, and it scared the shit out of him. He’d been mortified to think that Buffy had undergone the same thing.

   And, of course, Buffy hadn’t been forthcoming about the kind of relationship she and Spike had had at the first. But that was all beside the point now.

   “I’m gonna tell Faith she needs to go get a hotel, anyway,” Buffy said. “So she won’t startle you by sleeping on the couch or anything.”

   “You don’t have to,” Xander said.

   “I’m going to, anyway.”

   “You’re sweet, Buffy. And you and Spike are gonna do great, okay?”

   “I know.”

   Xander went into his own apartment, and Buffy went up to Giles’ to tell Faith to get the hell out – politely and with Slayer sister vibes about it – because she just couldn’t deal with guests. Faith took it in stride. “I get it, night before jitters. I’ll clear out.” She gave Buffy a quick hug. “See you at the wedding tomorrow, B.”

   Buffy stopped as Faith slipped out the door. “Tomorrow? The wedding is _tomorrow?_ ”

   “Yeah,” Dawn said, looking exasperated. “You’re the one who gave me the date. Tomorrow. Friday.”

   “I thought it was only Tuesday.”

   “That’s what you get for not having a job with a schedule.”

   Giles stepped between what was about to become a sisterly bitchfest. “You needn’t worry about the date, Buffy. Most of the decor and catering has already been handled. Neither you nor Spike went overboard on trappings.”

   “And Gretchen’s got your cakes almost all finished,” Dawn said. “Really, it’ll be fine Buffy.”

   A knock on the door made Buffy jump. It was only Xander, but Buffy was almost hoping it was a demon, telling her about some impending apocalypse. An apocalypse she could deal with! This was almost getting too much suddenly. Angel’s cookie tasted too sweet in her mouth.

   “Saw Faith on her way out. She said bye.”

   “Yeah, she’s getting a hotel.”

   “Spike sent me to get you. He’s got dinner.”

   Buffy swallowed. “Oh.”

   She went down the stairs almost dreading what she’d find. Was it some other impressive gift? Some kind of limo, or a hyper romantic... god, anything! She didn’t want to know!

   What she found instead was just Spike, normal place settings, and what looked like a pretty good meal. The smell of roasted onions was mouth watering. “I was sort of afraid you’d hired a mariachi band or something,” Buffy confessed.

   He chuckled. “Nah. I just realized you’d probably lost track of time again, and this whole thing is starting to get a bit overwhelming. So I told Xander to clear out, it could be just us.”

   Buffy sighed. “Yeah. It’s... um. Well. I didn’t expect Dawn was gonna tell Angel.”

   “Or the slayers, or practically everyone we know,” Spike said. “Yeah, that surprised me, too.”

   “Are you okay with it?”

   Spike shrugged. “I can tell the world, or we could elope tomorrow and keep it secret from everyone but Dawn,” he said. “It’s about you and me, innit? Not the rest of the planet.”

   Buffy sat down. “Yeah.” She started in. The meat on her plate was tender, braised in some kind of red wine – probably more of that Bull’s Blood, which Spike was pouring into her glass. Cooked up with onions and bell peppers with a side of... well, she suspected it was only Rice-a-Roni, but it was a real meal. Spike’s cooking was spotty, but the meat was excellent, very thinly sliced and seared to perfection. “This is really good,” she said.

   “I pulled up a recipe online,” Spike said. “I knew there had to be one.”

   “For what?”

   “Venison heart,” Spike said with a smirk. He raised his glass – which Buffy had only just realized did not hold wine, but probably deer blood – and then took a sip.

   She glared at him, and then pointedly ate the next bite. Yeah, okay, so, he’d tricked her. It still tasted excellent. “You’re a sick, perverted, vampire.”

   “And you’re a violent, self-righteous, slayer,” Spike said. “And we’re getting married tomorrow.”

   “Sounds pretty bad put that way.”

   “I know, doesn’t it?”

   If only his smile wasn’t so damn cute.

   Buffy looked down.

   “Okay, come on,” Spike said. He slid his chair around the table and put his hand in hers. “You having second thoughts, pet?”

   “Not about you and me.”

   “Good,” he said. “You okay?”

   Buffy hesitated, then looked down at her plate. The excellently braised venison did not look so appealing, and it wasn’t just because she knew what it was now. Her mouth had gone dry.

   “Okay, come here,” Spike said. He put his arm around her and pulled her into his lap. She slid over happily and nuzzled up to his throat. Spike groaned, and breathed in her scent as if he was smelling roses.

   “What...?”

   “Day fourteen,” he said. “Almost here.”

   Buffy looked up. That was an _excellent_ idea. “We could just jump ahead now.”

   “I’d rather wait,” Spike said.

   Buffy pouted. “Why?”

   “One day. I can wait,” Spike said. “It’ll be better tomorrow.”

   “We’ll be totally flustered and freaked out tomorrow.”

   Spike raised his eyebrow.

   “Oh. Okay,” Buffy said. “Probably right.”

   Spike suddenly picked her up and set her on the couch. “Be right back,” he said. He came back with his blood and her venison and Angel’s box of (Spike's!) cookies. He plonked them down on the coffee table and waved a DVD case at her. “I think this calls for The Princess Bride.”

   Buffy couldn’t help but chuckle. “You know, there wasn’t actually any real wedding in that movie.”

   “Yeah, she ran off with the black clad pirate instead of the prince,” Spike said. He put the movie in and settled in beside her. “Definitely a night for The Impressive Clergyman.”

   “Mawwidge,” the Impressive Clergyman said over an hour later as Buffy snuggled against Spike’s chest. “Mawwidge is watt bwings us togefver... tooday. Mawwidge, dat bwessed awwangement... dat dweem... wifin a dweem!”

   In light of their current predicament, Buffy howled, even though she knew the movie backwards. It was better, not thinking about the wedding, curling up into Spike’s arm as he fed her bits of her dinner, piece by piece, sliding his fingers into her mouth with each little bite. She doubled up with laughter as the clergyman continued his ceremony. “So twejjer yaw wuv...!”

   “We could just skip it,” Buffy said, snuggling into Spike’s throat.

   “Is that what you wanna do, pet?”

   Buffy felt unaccountably choked up. “No. I don’t know. I think I’m scared.”

   “Of what?”

   “Everything in my life that always seemed too good to be true? It always was. Every time. I finally land Angel, and I get Angelus. I start doing really well in college and mom gets sick. I get a normal boyfriend, and he turns blood junkie on me. Over and over and over again, every time things seem to go well, it just blows up.”

   “Well, there are usually reasons for that,” Spike said.

   “Yeah, and half the time the reason is me.” She sat up and looked Spike over. “Like, you. I mean, we stop fighting, then I die on you. Then I finally let myself have you – and I gotta tell you, if I’m honest, I’d wanted you for a long time. But I was too depressed to do it right. And then you go get a soul, and we finally claw our way to something real and...”

   “Elizabeth Taylor’s worst nightmare,” Spike said.

   “And don’t tell me things have been hugs and puppies since then,” Buffy said. “Even after things settled down. I mean, our settled down usually means killing something and...”

   “And shagging after,” Spike said.

   Buffy sagged.

   “What do you say we shag before?”

   “Huh?”

   Spike smirked. “I know one way to take your mind off things, and get you to calm down.” He slid his hand down and and pushed his knuckle into the muscles in the small of her back. “You want a massage, love?”

   “Only if you promise it will lead to exquisite sex.”

   “Promise,” Spike whispered. He kissed her, and yeah, that was definitely going to help her relax. Or excite her. One of those.

   Spike whipped the blanket off the back of the sofa and shoved the coffee table with the cookies across the room again – Xander had stopped bothering to complain about the scuff marks on the floor. He just dealt with them. While Westley tried to rescue Buttercup even though he had no strength, Spike took off Buffy’s shirt and lay her down on the blanket with her arms around a pillow.

   That man knew how to knead sore muscles. His cool hands slid along her skin, dug deep into knots, smoothed them out again, and then followed up with gentle, sensual kisses, which made Buffy shiver. The movie played on until it’s sweetly romantic ending, and then switched the menu page, and Spike did not stop massaging her, running his hands along her back, her shoulders, her arms, back down her back again. The movie started again automatically, and Buffy let Spike’s hands slide down along her hips, and slip down her buttocks, and ooh, hey, she was completely naked now, and that worked. He rubbed deep into her glutes, following up with her thighs, then performed miracles with her calves that made her squeal and moan and finally hum.

   He moved down to her feet, rubbing along the instep, massaging the ache out, one at a time. “That’s really awesome,” she murmured into her pillow.

   “Glad you like it, pet.”

   “Mm-hm. Would you marry me?”

   “Probably,” he said.

   “Oh, good.”

   Buffy felt like kneaded dough, and when he turned her over she lay there sort of like that, pale and spreading and sort of rising. She lay listlessly staring up at Buttercup and Westly as they began their love affair anew, because true love like that can just start over again and again, and it doesn’t matter that she’d seen it before, because it was always going to be there, and... and Spike’s tongue was on her clit, wasn’t it? Oh, yeah, that was definitely what was happening.

   “Mm...” she hummed. She reached her hand down and caressed his hair. “You enjoying that?”

   “Mm-hm,” he responded, without stopping.

   “Oh, good.” She was very much relaxed now. She let out a contented sigh as the pleasure gently washed through her, idly caressing her own breast, her eyes opening and closing on the flickering screen.

   Mmm... oh, he’d added his finger now. Just one, very very delicately, sliding around and around her entrance, and... mmm... now just tickling inside before he pulled it out again, and she bit her lip and let her breathing quicken or soften depending on his actions. She arched her shoulders and let her hips wriggle, but not too much, because relaxed Buffy didn’t have to move much, and gently attentive Spike knew exactly how to take care of her, and man, horses did look like a much more enjoyable way to move around, didn’t they? And hell yeah, marry the dashing pirate in black who knows how to fight, and god, Spike’s tongue was skilled, and mmm, ooh, yeah, don’t stop that, because... unh!

   She grunted as she came, and Spike pulled away, and rubbed at her thighs, and her hips, and down her shins, and tenderly rubbed her feet again, and then slid back up her legs and... oooh. He had started again. Not the punishing overwhelming refusal to stop her pleasure, just... apparently now she got more.

   Buffy lost track of how many times he brought her to gasping, pulled away, kissed her gently on the belly or the breasts or the thighs, let her relax, and then did it all over again. She thought maybe five? He didn’t push for the screaming orgasms, but by the time he was done she felt limp as a wet noodle, and was ready to just sleep right where she was. She didn’t know if the movie was still going, but she distinctly felt him lift her, and carry her to the bed.

   She figured he expected her to be asleep, or go right to sleep, but when he left her there alone she found herself wide awake. Her body was relaxed, there was nothing more it needed, she _should_ have been sleeping. But she couldn’t. Terror was tickling at the corner of her brain, and she had to lock it down or it would run rampant. She lay blinking in the dark, and eventually Spike came in. “Can’t sleep, love?”

   Buffy knew he liked to stay awake all night, if he could. He usually didn’t join her in bed to sleep until daybreak. The sun still held sway, and even though the police really liked having him available whenever they needed him, he preferred to not waste his free dark time by sleeping. But he also liked snuggling. He probably heard her heartbeat, still awake.

   “Still nervous,” she confessed.

   He crawled into bed with her. “It’s gonna be okay, love.”

   “Don’t,” she said. “No lies. Don’t.”

   “It’s not a lie, Buffy, I—”

   “But you don’t _know_.” She didn’t want to lose this heavy, languid feeling, and she was afraid the fear would scare it away. “Would you just hold me?”

   Spike put his arm around her, pulled her against his chest, and put his other hand where she could reach it. “You know... the first time you asked me this?” Spike murmured into her hair. “I couldn’t think of anything to say. All the words went right out of my head. Of course, or always, or god, yes, Buffy, this is all I’ve ever wanted. They all just vanished, and I was left... blank. It was as if... you’d made my black soul pure, and there was nothing there. Like I could start over or something. I mean, I knew it couldn’t last, but... that was what it felt like, right then. Everything was gone, every want, every need, every sin... just everything.” He kissed her hairline. “Still the best night of my life.”

   She couldn’t help but smile. _Yeah. This,_ she thought as she caressed his hand with her thumb. Forget the flowers. Forget the cookies. Forget the weather and the venison and the shelving units and everything. This was her gift, this, right here, curled up in these arms, relaxed and content. Hell yeah.

   Best gift of all.

 

 

 

 

_For anyone having trouble envisioning Dru's wedding gift  
_

 

_Just picture that, swimming in blood. True romance._


	8. Vows

 

   Buffy paced back and forth in her apartment, where she was trying to “get ready” for the ceremony. She was “ready” already. She’d gotten her make up mostly done, had Willow look it over, and Dawn had helped with her hair. Those two, her maids of honor, had been ready for hours, done up in dresses that weren’t exactly matching, but had a similar theme to them. But then Xander had poked his head in and announced that one of Dawn’s college friends had released the buffet....

   “There’s a buffet?” Buffy asked. “How can you release a buffet?”

   “Um...”

   “What?”

   “It was mostly kittens,” Xander admitted. “I don’t know who arranged for this.”

   “Someone was setting up a kitten buffet?” Buffy glared. “Did anyone tell Spike about this?”

   “I doubt it,” Dawn said. “You know he doesn’t eat kittens anymore.”  

   He didn’t. They were too fluffy, and tickled his soul and made him all gooshy these days. Actually, Spike snuggling kittens was one of the cutest things Buffy had ever seen, and it had made her fall in love with him all over again. “Well, good, there won’t be bloodshed at my wedding.”

   “Um, well...” Xander said. “They sort of got into the doves....”

   “There were doves?” This was news to Buffy.

   “I don’t know who arranged for those, either,” he said. “They were supposed to be released when you finally tied the knot.”

   “Ooooh! That’s so romantic!” Dawn squealed.

   “Sounds kind of cruel to the doves, to me,” Buffy snapped. “Pet store doves suddenly released into the city in the middle of the night? They’ll be dead in a week.”

   “Or in two minutes,” Xander said.

   Willow looked startled. “They didn’t just fly away?”

   “I don’t think they were able to.”

   “This doesn’t end well, does it.”

   “It does involve the words  _ Oh, the carnage, _ I’m afraid. Can you guys give me a hand with...?”

   “Go!” Buffy told the girls.

   Willow dithered. “But your make up....”

   “I’m capable of doing my own left eye. Go!”

   She was glad they had gone. She spent a few more minutes in front of the mirror in her bedroom, meditatively finishing up her make up, and then had settled down to how she really wanted to spend the last few minutes before the ceremony.

   Panicking.

   She paced back and forth, back and forth in the living room, peered through the peephole at the crowd gathering in the hallway, and paced back and forth again.

   The ceremony was supposed to take place in the downstairs entry lobby, but the reception was to spill out all through the hallways. The bar, for instance, was up here on the second floor, and people were milling around it like migrating lemmings. There were slayers she’d trained out there. Slayers she’d only seen photographs of. Slayers she’d thought were dead already. Ugh, was that  _ Kennedy? _ Willow was gonna have a picnic with her ex suddenly showing up. 

   She stared numbly out the peephole as she realized the bartender, at least for the moment, seemed to be Andrew of all people. She didn’t know the kid knew how to drink! From the grim faces of the people he was handing drinks to, he probably didn’t. And hell, the bar wasn’t even supposed to be open right now, wasn’t it supposed to be there for the reception? Maybe it was to distract from whatever was happening to the buffet downstairs....

   Not that it mattered. She could tell no amount of alcohol was going to make this collection of people mesh. There were slayers and demons and dozens of cops from Spike’s work. She’d already heard shouting from the lower lobby. A loud tinkling crash sent Buffy back to the peephole again. She saw a blonde leaning over in a skimpy dress that looked more like a bathing suit, showing off her cleavage to Andrew, who had dropped a bottle, looking flustered.

   “ _ Harmony? _ ” Buffy squeaked. The blonde vampire turned and stared at the door to the apartment, her vampire ears catching the sound. Buffy backed away. Who the hell had invited  _ Harmony? _ Well, Buffy supposed she hadn’t really needed an invite, specifically. She was only in the hallway, and since the Scoobies didn’t own the apartment complex, the halls were still technically public. But god! Did Spike know she was here? 

   Of course he knew she was here. There was no way he could miss she was here. Him and Willow, facing ghosts of girlfriends past. Spike was downstairs, probably fielding the dove carnage, and all of those people were there, expecting some kind of glorious wedding-of-the-century between once-mortal-enemies, and oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck!

   “Hm, hm... oh, god... do-do-doo... dooo... Did you ever know that you’re my hero, fuck you. Oh, why the fuck am I doing this....” Buffy sang. She paced and paced and jiggled her foot and looked out the peephole in the door and paced and...

   Someone’s hand on her shoulder made her jump. Buffy whirled to stare into the gleaming red eyes of a green-faced demon with sharp horns and alarming teeth, and was all ready to start with the slaying before she realized it was just Lorne, and she really should calm down. She lowered her clenched fist.

   “Sorry, Buffy baby, didn’t mean to startle you,” Lorne said with his hands raised.

   Her displaced panic nipped at her, and she felt her eyes tearing. Just a little, but it was enough.

   “Whoa. Whoa, peach pie, what’s in your eye? Come on over and talk to uncle Lorne, hey?”

   The Pylean demon took Buffy’s shoulder and led her to the middle of the room, away from the crowd in the hall. Buffy didn’t know Lorne very well, but she knew he was a pretty good friend of Spike’s, and Willow knew him from before Sunnydale fell. And after all, everyone she knew even tangentially seemed to be here, save the three men who had claimed to love her and then walked out, Angel, Riley, and her father. Hell, she was surprised the Immortal hadn’t made an appearance. And for all she knew, the Immortal was probably downstairs chatting up the ushers. Of course Lorne had been invited.

   He should have been out with the rest of the crowd, though, not here in her apartment. “What are you doing in here?”

   “Little Whip-Poor-Willow let me in to find some real grapefruit and catch up a bit. That bartender out there wouldn’t know a Sea Breeze from a broken wind, if you know what I’m saying. I was telling her about my last Europe tour before she got called off for something. I had some great crowds. But what’s going on with you, slayer-cakes?”

   Buffy took in a deep breath. Lorne was all right, but everyone else buzzed in the building like a swarm of malignant wasps. Concealed though they were through the door, Buffy could hear them, she could sense them, a weight, expecting her to perform for them, display Spike,  _ her  _ Spike, display him as her claimed prize in front of the whole room, and, “I can’t do this.”

   “What do you mean, sunny sister?”

   “I can’t get married, I can’t go out there, I can’t do this.”

   Lorne’s brow furrowed between his tiny horns. “You’re gonna be okay. You love the sucker, don’t you?”

   “Of course I do! I’m just panicking!”

   “I could tell that, sweet cheeks, but what is it that ails you? Don’t you want to get married?”

   “I do! I do, it’s just... I didn’t expect it to be  _ this! _ ” She looked at the door as if she could peer through solid wood. She sat down in her pretty party dress, not caring if she creased it, and gave herself over to genuine panic. “Couldn’t something attack the wedding party? Please? Hell hounds! Suvalte hatchlings! Tribbles! I just want something I can slay! I don’t....” She collapsed into tears. “I don’t want to do this!”

   Lorne held Buffy’s hands in his and stared at her. “You’re gonna marry Spike. I know that, you know that. Everyone out there knows that.”

   “I know!” Buffy snapped. “That’s what’s bothering me!” 

   She didn’t mind marrying Spike. She didn’t mind having to explain why, if anyone asked. But the idea of trying to justify it when it was so pure and so clear and so obvious, that was what was sending her into a panic. Because how can you explain the light of the sun? How can you justify the phases of the moon? It’s just what it is, and pointing at it, claiming it, giving it a name… it made it so much less than what it really was. 

   Those people out there, they simply couldn’t begin to understand what she and Spike had, what they were, what it meant. It went beyond destiny, beyond love, beyond life. Their destinies said to kill each other, their hatred had been ingrained from the moment they met, and as for life, they’d both left life behind and wandered back to each other regardless. It was bigger than all of that. Even if those people out there approved, even if they thought they understood, it was beyond them. It was beyond her and Spike, even, and they lived it every day. And having it on display like this…  _ Enjoy your honeymoon with a big pile of dust. _

  It felt like trying to expose it to the sunlight. It felt like it was going to burn it up.

  “Oh, god,” Buffy buried her face in her hands. “I don’t think I can do this.”

  “You can, and you will,” Lorne said. “So. What do you need now, dollface? I can get it for you.”

   Buffy just sat and trembled for a bit. She could face an entire horde of Turok-Han, but this room full of wedding guests...!

   “Xander,” she said suddenly. “Find Xander. Tell him I want to do something drastic. Quickly.”

   “Like what?”

   “I don’t know yet! Just tell him! And… and if you see Spike... tell him it just stopped being fun.”

   Lorne looked at her seriously for a moment. “You’ll wait right here, okay?”

   “No,” Buffy said. “No. I am locking myself in the bathroom like a dumb teenage kid. Sound good?”

   “Sounds perfect,” Lorne said, and showed her gallantly to the bathroom door, bowing her in with a smile.

   Buffy slammed it in his face, opened it again, said, “Nothing personal,” and slammed it again.

   She spent the next five minutes rocking back and forth on the seat of the toilet, utterly destroying her beautifully coiffed hair and probably ruining her make up by burying her head in her hands.

   After a little bit, there was a tentative knock on the bathroom door. “Buffy? Baby?”

   “Yeah,” Buffy called out, even though she was biting her hand to hold the panic back.

   “I brought you your Xander,” Lorne said quietly.

   “Hey, Buffy,” Xander said. “If you’re decent, would you let us in?”

   Buffy unlocked the bathroom door, and Xander peered in. “You having a— oof!” Buffy had nearly squashed him in a bear hug.

   “I’m panicking,” she whimpered in his ear.

   “I can see that.”

   “I don’t know what to do.”

   “You can ease up,” Xander said, sounding strangely choked, and Buffy realized she was hugging him too tight. No wonder she was marrying a vampire, she’d have killed someone normal if she hugged them as tight as she wanted.

   Xander gasped and staggered, but he was pretty used to way-too-tight hugs from his slayer friend by now, so he shook it off quick.

   “I don’t know what to do,” Buffy repeated.

   “It’s okay, Buff, I got this,” Xander said.

   “You do?”

   “Yeah. Car’s downstairs. All you have to do is get in it.”

   “No!” Buffy shouted, loud enough that the sounds of the party outside lulled for a second, confused by the yell. “I am not leaving Spike. I’m not you, Xander,” she said more quietly. “Not to be insulting but—”

   “Spike’s there too,”

   “Spike’s there? He’s okay?”

   “Yeah. I gave him your message.” Lorne put his hand on her shoulder. “It just stopped being fun. He got it.”

   “We had this sort of arranged already, Buffy.”

   “Had what?” Buffy was seriously confused, now.

   “Plan B,” Xander said. “You come along with me, just believe me, I got this.” He turned to Lorne. “You got  _ this? _ ”

   “Oh, I  _ so _ got this,” Lorne said with a grin. Clearly they’d agreed to something while Buffy was in quiet hysterics in the bathroom.

   Xander nodded to Buffy and took her arm, leading her out the fire escape and down into the street.

   So there was no vampire slayer in the apartment fifteen minutes later, when a demon did take over the wedding party.

 

***

 

   “Hey, there everybody, yep, yep, up here, good to see you all.”

   The wedding guests turned and looked up at the flower festooned stage, where Buffy and Spike were supposed to stand before Giles and give their ultimate vows and pledge themselves to each other forever. The only person up there was a green skinned demon with a broad grin and an easy going manner. “I’m Lorne, I’ll be your host for this evening,” he announced. He had found a microphone from somewhere, probably obtained for the speeches, but Lorne knew the best way to play an audience, and the mic worked a trick for grabbing attention. “I understand you’re all here for some groovy slayer/vampire ultimate commitment!”

   There was a slight scattering of applause, which Lorne encouraged, grinning with his teeth like a bay window. “That’s right, that’s right, let’s have a round of applause for love and commitment, yeah!”

   The resultant applause was indeed heartfelt. Even those who were creeped out by the whole thing knew better than to restrain their applause, and Lorne played that up beautifully.

   “Now, for those of you who were looking forward to some commitment making, I’m afraid I have a bit of a disappointment.” There was a dark hush around the room, as Lorne continued, “I am afraid there will be no wedding here today. No, I know, I know,” he said, as one of Spike’s co-workers raised a hand, “you were all counting on those crazy kids, but the truth of the matter is, they’re getting married for themselves, not for all of you. Oh, did I forget to mention? The wedding’s still on!”

   Someone in the back randomly clapped, then stopped, as the rest of the crowd faltered.

   “No, no, you go ahead and applaud!” Lorne called out, and a few people did, nervously, curious, before Faith started clapping in earnest, glaring around her, and many of the slayers followed her lead. “Because while the ceremony itself has changed venues, the slayer and her lovely beau have kindly asked me to give you folks the night of your lives!”

   “So, without further ado, allow me to present you, just in from a European tour, the toast of London, the brioche of Par-ree, and the rosette of Rome... myself,” he bowed elegantly. “Krevlornswath, Lorne of the land, some of you may have heard of me.” The Immortal applauded loudly from the back of the room, and Lorne beamed at him. “And I’ll be here all night to sing to you fine people the best songs of living, songs of laughter, and maybe, just a little bit, of lovin’. Let me hear a bit of that music there....” he said, pointing to Andrew, who promptly stabbed a button on the expensive sound equipment Lorne had schooled him on. A low rhythm started on the speakers, and the demon tilted his head back to sing....

 

***

  
  


   Buffy looked a treat as she absconded down the fire escape and into his car. Spike had been trying to resign himself to the fact that his fiancee hadn’t wanted to announce their vows before the entire company of the world and tell them all screw it if they didn’t like it. But now, absconding with her into the night, as if he’d kidnapped her, the giddy, slightly guilty, incredibly mischievous look on her face, well... if this wasn’t even more romantic, he didn’t know what could be.

   And cor, but she looked gorgeous. Her makeup was stunning, the mascara had run just a little, making her look a bit darker and more goth than her usual preference, her dress glowed golden in the streetlamps, and her hair had come down just enough that she looked as if they’d been shagging illicitly in a broom cupboard or something. And as for telling the world to screw it if they didn’t like it... well, hell. If this wasn’t an even louder declaration of that.

   And she looked happy. She looked so, so happy now that they’d abandoned all the trimmings. He was really strapped for words for a long time as he forced his eyes onto the road.  _ I’m gonna marry her, I’m gonna marry this, this glorious, glowing, murderous thing beside me, this deadly atom bomb of deliciousness, this. _

   All he actually said, when he was able to drag his voice out from his bowels at a stop light was, “You look nice.”

   “I feel evil,” she said with a slightly giddy laugh. “So where are we going? Running off to Vegas?”

   “Paperwork’s already through for Cali, pet, we needn’t go that far.” He glanced at her. “That is, if you’re not throwing the whole marriage thing out the window...?”

   “No!” She grabbed hold of his hand and squeezed it hard enough he let out an involuntary “ooh” of pain. She eased up. “No, that wasn’t the problem. It was just the whole... that.” She gestured wildly behind them in the general direction of the apartment building. She sank down deeper into the passenger seat. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I used to like the idea of a big wedding like that.”

   “Did you?” Spike turned the car down the right road and glanced at her out of the corner of his eye.

   “All the fairy tale dreams and the poofy white wedding dress and having my dad walk me down the aisle.” She gave a single, sardonic laugh. “I’ve been doing my absolute best to avoid this whole thing since it came up.”

   “Nah,” Spike said. “You just wanted it your way, not based on some stupid tradition.”

   “I used to like those traditions,” Buffy said. “Like, to dance with your one-true-honey at the Senior Prom, or... I don’t know....” She looked utterly flustered, as if any other traditions had escaped her mind. “It’s just, it all seems so stupid now. And I never wanted all those people there, anyway.”

   “Harmony caught me in the lobby,” Spike said. “Gave me an earful.”

   “I know, what the hell!” She shook her head. “Do you know any, like, really refined torture scenarios I can inflict on Dawn, because seriously....”

   “She didn’t mean anything by it,” Spike said. “Besides, she’s made it up to you.”

   “How?”

   “Helped us set up Plan B.”

   Buffy snuggled up to his arm. “So what exactly is Plan B?”

   “You’ll see,” Spike said. Buffy wheedled, but he was enjoying this too much. It really was like stealing her away. Far too much fun to tease her, and she was using all her wiles — not to mention her nimble little fingers, and her sharp little nails all up and down his torso and his ear and anywhere else she could reasonably reach without making him crash the damn car.

   By the time they got there, Buffy was half out of her seat, whispering into his ear, “Where are we going? Where? Come on, where?” nibbling on his earlobe, and occasionally pinching it.

   “Gah!” he chuckled, shrugging her off. “Here, all right! Bloody hell!”

   “Here?” She looked around. “Where exactly is here?”

   They were in a nondescript part of the city. Buffy’d actually been here before, but only during daylight. Spike shoved his seat back, grabbed her, and yanked her into his lap over the gear shift. She squealed, and her butt caught on the steering wheel. A loud honk echoed in the city streets. “And you... Miss Summers... are about to gain the worst husband in a century.”

   She beamed down at him, gorgeous. “And you’re about to gain the cruelest, most violent wife anyone could ever land.”

   “Mmm....” He leaned forward and almost kissed her, but didn’t. He was saving that for the ceremony. Instead he nuzzled her throat. God, she smelled good, absolutely the perfect day to do this. He almost bit at her sweet flesh, his body telling him  _ Can’t wait. Need girl _ .

_ Down boy! _ he told it firmly, and squeezed at her buttocks. “You ready, love?”

   “Ready as I’ll ever be,” she said. As his face fell she grabbed him and — oh, hell, whatever — he let her kiss him. “For you, always,” she whispered.

   Okay. She had meant that.

   “Are you two coming, or what?” someone shouted. It was Dawn, in her bridesmaids dress, standing in front of a long, low building on the corner.

   “Dawn’s here?” Buffy asked.

   “Of course she is.” Spike opened the door and half carried her out of the car.

   “Oh, ew,” Dawn said. “Don’t tell me what you were up to in the same seat.”

   “Not even second base,” Spike said. He snaked his arm around Buffy’s back, as if going for treasures. “But if you’d like to see me round third....”

   “Ugh! No!” She ran back inside. “Come on, we’re all set up.”

   Buffy looked around, and Spike led her onward, hoping she wouldn’t recognize the area until they were inside. He and Xander had spent a long time setting this place up. So it was being used a couple hours earlier than the original plan. That was fine by him.

   The lobby of the place was pitch dark. “No lights at all,” Spike had stipulated to Xander. “I want her surprised when she comes in.”

   He perched her by the door, closed each of her eyes with a kiss. “Count to ten, then come in,” he whispered to her. Then he backed away, because he was having a hard time not pressing her up against the wall already. She looked so beautiful, nervous and stressed and just a little rumpled, and....

   He backed away and closed the door, gesturing to Dawn to start the camera.

   “Eight. Nine.... Ten,” Buffy said, and she opened the door.

   The dojo had been utterly transformed. Spike had had the place bedecked with candles, highlighted with fragrant flowers, gardenia and Madagascar jasmine, and white festoons of cloth that matched the bedspread on the mattress which was, at this point, behind a screen in the corner. The candlelight was reflected in the dojo’s gym mirrors along the far wall, and Buffy glowed out of the darkness like a flame herself as she opened the door.

   Spike had always planned this place for their honeymoon night. Buying it was what had brought marriage into the picture, it seemed right that it was part of the whole thing. When he and Xander had discussed Plan B, he’d already known the dojo was going to be set up for celebration already. All it meant was that Spike had some help lighting the candles, and there was going to be a short delay before they chose to use that bed.

   Willow handed Buffy her wedding bouquet as she entered, looking stunned. The last time she’d seen this place it still stank of old sweat and was filled with moving boxes. The room had been cleaned and aired and now smelled of fragrant flowers and scented candles. The wood floor was polished to shine almost as brightly as the mirrors, and everyone important was there. Giles stood waiting to do the honors. Spike stood in his leather coat with a tie over his considerably-higher-quality-than-usual button up shirt, with Xander beside him as best man. Dawn filmed the proceedings while Buffy, blushing and looking glorious, moved across the dojo to Spike, flanked by a beaming Willow.

   “This okay with you, slayer?” Spike whispered as she took his hands.

   “This is perfect,” she whispered back. Her voice trembled. Her hands trembled. Her eyes shone in the candlelight.

   “Well, then,” Giles said with a bit of an air. “I’m not a pastor, and I’ve been told I should handle this with an air of being a bit easy going, so that’s what I intend. We’re all gathered here to make some kind of a public statement about the long-standing relationship of these two worthy partners. Spike. You want her?” 

   “That I do,” Spike said with a grin.

   “All right then. Buffy. You want him?”

   “Pretty sure I do,” Buffy said.

   “Well, that’s the agreement bit out of the way. I understand you have a few things to say to each other before we declare this a marriage?”

   Spike grinned down at Buffy. He’d been practicing his lines. In some cases he hadn’t remembered the words she’d said exactly, but he was pretty sure Buffy would recognize the gist, and Willow said Buffy had been in the same boat with the lines she’d picked out of her memory. This was the order Willow had said would sound best. He was nervous as hell. “Were you born this big a pain in the ass?” he asked her casually.

   Buffy laughed.

   “Well?”

   She had to fight back her laughter to find her line. “Well, you become a vampire and you’ve got nothing to fear. Nothing but one girl.”

   “We’re mortal enemies,” he retorted. “We don’t get timeouts.”

   “Ah, the crowd pleasing threats and swagger routine. Outstandingly original. And... and I never really liked you anyway. And you have stupid hair!”

   Spike burst out laughing at that one. For a moment he covered his face with his hand, and then tossed out, “I violently dislike you.”

   “I have come to redefine the words pain and suffering since I fell in love with you,” Buffy said softly.

   His head tilted. She remembered that? “The only chance you had with me is when I was unconscious,” he said.

   “I may be love’s bitch,” Buffy said grinning up at him. “But at least I’m man enough to admit it.”

   “So you haven't murdered anybody lately?” Spike said. He took another step toward her. “Let's be best pals.”

   “You think I still dream of a crypt for two with a white picket fence?” she said. She shook her head. “Never really cared for picket fences anyway. Bloody dangerous.”

   Spike’s fist was clenching with adoration. “Okay, okay, I’m attainable. I’m an attainathon, already.”

   Buffy laughed. “As a personal favor, from me to you,” she said taking one last step up to him, gazing up into his face. “I’ll make it quick. It won’t hurt a bit.”

   Spike’s hand went out and cupped her neck and jawline, caressing her cheek. He remembered this one. “Oh, baby. It’s gonna hurt a lot.”

   He thought they had a few other lines but he couldn’t help it at that point. Spike kissed her, deeply, smoothly, tasting her like she were a fine wine, and Buffy clutched at him. Willow squealed with the romance. Giles cleared his throat. Xander made a somewhat nervous laugh, and Dawn zoomed in the camera.

   “I’m calling it,” Giles said suddenly, “I pronounce that husband and wife. Someone promised me scotch.”

   “It’s still at the reception,” Xander said.

   “Well, I think that’s my duty fulfilled,” Giles said. “My mind is open, I believe I’m sufficiently  _ dude _ , I’m heading back to the flat before a suffalido demon lays eggs in the foyer or something. Anyone with me?”

   “I think I’m with you on that need for a drink,” Xander said. As they walked away he muttered, “That was a little too twisted. I did not expect to hear all that.”

   “That was the point,” Willow said. “They’re coming completely out of the closet, it was sweet.”

   “And I know that was half your fault, too,” Xander said as he slipped out the door. “Is it just me, or was the only vow actually exchanged there something about making it hurt a lot?”

   “I think that also might have been part of the point,” Giles said ruefully before the door closed.

   Dawn watched them all file out, pausing as Willow left a few finishing touches on the deal table by the hall, where the central wedding cake sat on a tier, surrounded by a half dozen of the cupcakes Gretchen had made to fill it out, for lack of proper baking equipment. She backed away, catching a final glimpse of the kissing couple before closing the door. She closed the side view on the recorder and sighed. There. She could use the computer lab at the college to pick out stills for actual photographs, and she and Willow had a bunch of photo shoots planned for their own enjoyment at the reception. After her screw up over the invites, Dawn was willing to do  _ anything _ to make this damn wedding what Buffy wanted it to be. She took Buffy’s honeymoon duffle bag from Willow, who had carried it over from the car, and slipped it through the dojo door, finally sneaking out as quietly as she could.

   The closing of the door, however, alerted Spike, who finally stopped the kiss. Buffy was a little breathless. “I think we scared ‘em off.”

   Buffy grinned up at him. “Was that the plan?”

   “Mighta been,” Spike said, smiling down at her. “I might have given a few instructions for just getting everyone the hell out of the way as fast as humanly possible, so’s I could get on with the ravishing of you ruthlessly.”

   “How terribly evil and nefarious of you.”

   “Vampire, pet. Can’t go totally white hat on you, you’d forget who I am.”

   Buffy glanced over and spied her duffel bag. “Your stuff floating around here, too?”

   “Oh, yeah. Had it set last night.”

   Buffy grinned. “In that case.” She loosened his tie. “I want you... to stand right there... and I’ll go set up your wedding present.”

   “I get pressies, do I?” He grabbed her ass. “From my sweet slayer wife?”

   Buffy cringed, half thrilled and half chagrined by the word. “To my evil vampire husband, yes,” she said. She giggled. “God, how are we going to handle this? It sounds so  _ weird! _ ”

   “I think we’ll get used to it.”

   Buffy leaned forward and kissed him. “I think so, too.” She pulled his tie off his neck and, to his surprise, tied it over his eyes. “No peeking,” she said softly, gave him one last peck and propped him against the wall, blindfolded.

   She knew she only had a moment. Spike got bored easily. There was only one way she knew that he’d let her keep a blindfold over his eyes for long. She grabbed what she really needed from the side pocket of her duffel and came back quickly. Fortunately, the dojo had myriad hooks and brackets on the walls, to display weaponry. Buffy had, thoughtfully, leaned Spike up below just one of these. She took hold of his left hand and kissed the back of it, then his scarred and calloused knuckles. She nibbled on each of his fingertips, making him hiss, and his right hand shot out for her silk-clad hip. She let it stay there. Why not, just for a bit. She nuzzled his hand, eventually landing a sensual kiss right on the palm.

   Then she slid the band of the handcuff over his wrist. “With this ring,” she whispered, “I thee wed.”

   Spike gasped and shuddered, and the fingers on her hip clenched, bunching the satin into his hand. “Bloody hell,” he breathed. A second later she’d wrenched his hand up by the cuff and slipped the chain through the bracket. His fist yanked on her dress, and the bulge below his waistline showed he was in need of nothing else to be ready to play. “Did I just marry the perfect woman, or what?”

   “Shut up, husband,” Buffy said. “I haven’t given you permission to talk, yet.”

   “Huh?”

   She leaned in to whisper in his ear. “We’re still on the love, honor, and  _ obey _ , honey. One word only, and only when I ask you a question. Got that?”

   “Yeah,” he breathed.

   “Good boy.”

   “Do I have to be?” he asked, wickedly. “Ow!”

   Buffy had grabbed his other hand, her nails digging into his wrist, and forced it up above his head to the other cuff. “Yes!” she hissed.

   Spike chuckled, but kept his tongue still as she clicked the other handcuff and left him hanging by his wrists from the bracket on the wall. He could, of course, have kicked her or something, but he hung docilely, with a stupidly happy grin on his face. “You liked my dress?”

   “Yeah,” Spike whispered.

   “Want me to leave it on?”

   He hesitated.

   “Or did you want the honor of removing it?”

   “Yeah.”

   “All right, then,” Buffy said. She started slowly unbuttoning his shirt. It was crisp and ironed and she was so glad he’d spruced up his usual style, even while staying with it at her request. The formal black shirt with the red tie as a focal point looked lovely beside her ruby-dusted gold.

   “There,” she said when the shirt was unbuttoned. His white skin shone in the candlelight. She pulled the stake out of her thigh holster and brought the point up to his throat. “You feel this?” she whispered.

   Spike gasped. “Yeah.”

   “Scary?”

   He started to nod, stopped when he realized it would dig the point into his chin. “Yes.”

   She leaned in closer. “Like it?”

   He sucked in a breath, “Yessss,” he said with a sigh of longing.

   She slid the point along his throat, gently, just a gentle, naughty little scratch, up along behind his ear, tracing down the side of his neck until it met the collar of his coat, and then along and up the other side, making him gasp and shudder as the point caressed his skin. She slipped it down along his adams apple, to the hollow of his collarbone, then traced that bone along both sides, back and forth, back and forth, arcing over his pectorals, circling them both. She wrote the word LOVER across his chest, carefully avoiding his nipples, then below that, HUSBAND across his stomach. She circled his navel, traced the stake back up, and gently, dangerously, let the point hover over his heart.

   Spike was breathing hard, trembling as his hands tugged at the handcuffs, but Buffy had tested these herself. Willow had reinforced them, they were made to detain demons. Even she couldn’t break them without a wedge. They were quick release, too, made to open at a word and a touch at the keyhole.

   “Slayer of slayers,” Buffy whispered to her husband with the stake at his heart. “What do you deserve?”

   He hesitated. “Dust,” he admitted.

   Buffy couldn’t help but smile. “Too easy. You need to atone.”

   “How?”

   “I didn’t ask you a question,” she said, digging the point in just a little deeper.

   He grunted.

   “Do you give yourself to me?” Buffy whispered. “Do you pledge your life to mine?”

   “Forever,” he breathed.

   “Will you be my champion?”

   “Yes.” His voice was raw.

   She was getting a little distracted. She’d had other beautiful and poetic things to say, but they’d sort of fallen out of her head at the sight of him, bound and blindfolded and trembling before her. “Do I get to keep you?”

   Her voice had come out like a little girl’s, and the trembling excitement in Spike melted. “Forever,” he said softly.

   “Promise?”

   “Promise.”

   Buffy lifted off the blindfold and gazed into his ice blue eyes. “I love you,” she whispered.

   “I love you, Slayer.”

   Buffy kissed him, hard, humming slightly with the passion of it. When she stopped she dropped to her knees, and gently petted the twitching length that bulged there. “That wasn’t a response to a question,” she said wickedly from her knees. “I’ll have to punish you for that.”

   Spike made a groan and tilted his head back, but he quickly looked back down, because Buffy on her knees was always a beautiful sight. She carefully undid his trousers, and his cock sprang out, starving for her. He hoped to god she was about to take it in her mouth, but she didn’t. He waited for her, panting slightly, then started when he felt something sharp  _ on his prick. _

   “Oh, god, Buffy!” he gasped, but she said, “Shh. Don’t make me punish you any more.”

   Buffy circled the base of his cock with the stake, sliding his trousers down as she did it, so he was essentially hobbled as well as handcuffed. He felt ridiculously vulnerable like that. He looked across the dojo to the mirrors that graced the far wall. There was only Buffy there, Buffy, on her knees before a blank wall, in her gorgeous, off kilter dress....

   And he had to close his eyes as Buffy circled the little bit of moisture at the tip of his cock with her stake, and then gently, purposefully, slipped the tip  _ inside him _ .

   She was very delicate as she gently fucked his cock with her stake, only slipping it in a few centimeters, but god, that was more than enough to know she owned him entire. He clenched his fists and fought to keep still as the deadly weapon invaded him in the most intimate way possible. Buffy looked up as his trembling continued. “You want me to stop?”

   “No,” he gasped. “Yes.... Oh, fuck! Buffy!”

   Buffy bent forward and licked his cock, and the sick fuck  _ jumped _ . Didn’t it know better than to stay still when it was being invaded like this? Apparently not, because as Buffy’s hot, wet little tongue laved at him, the thing strained and danced and seemed to be trying to suck the whole damn stake in. Finally Buffy took pity on him. In the same movement she slipped out the stake and slipped the head of the cock into her mouth. She sucked and licked and caressed it with her hand as — oh, bugger — she let the stake slide right behind his balls, the sharp point tickling at the sensitive spot right behind them, where she  _ knew _ he liked to be petted, and dammit, but this was terrifying and erotic both, in a kind of visceral, horrible way. And she knew it was, and he couldn’t... he couldn’t hold back anymo—

   She pulled away with an evil grin on her face, leaving him trembling and starving for her, and utterly trapped.

   “Which one of us married the evil demon?” he asked, panting. “I ask merely for information.”

   Buffy laughed. “I’m trying to piss you off.”

   “It’s working!”

   “Good.”

   “Why?”

   She surged to her feet and hissed into his ear, “So you’re angry enough to hunt me properly when I finally let you out of those cuffs.”

   Her scent was intoxicating. Day. Fucking. Fourteen. “You want to be hunted, then?” 

   “Isn’t this how these things work?” Buffy said. “Vampire and Slayer?” She stepped back. “Now. You wanted to take this off me?”

   She twirled, and the ruby colored sequins on her dress sparkled. He really wanted to feel that silk under his hands. “Yeah.”

   “Tough.” She went back to her duffel and pulled out an audio player which she set up on the table next to the cakes. As she pressed play she snitched a piece of spun sugar off the nearest cupcake and slipped the edge of it into her mouth. As the rhythm line of the first song started she popped over and kissed Spike very sweetly indeed.

   He licked the sugar off his lips and then frowned. “Buffy? Where’d you get this music?”

   “Remember it?”

   He couldn’t possibly forget. It was the song that had been playing in The Bronze the first time he’d seen Buffy, when she hadn’t really seen him, though she’d heard his voice saying there was a big guy outside trying to bite someone.

   “How did you...?”

   “You told me about it yonks ago,” she said. “Right after we found each other again. I asked around, found a copy.”

_  I did a stupid thing last night, _ the music crooned. And to Spike’s mingled joy and horror, Buffy started performing a strip tease.

   “Oh, bloody hell, slayer, you trying to kill me?”

   Buffy laughed as she twisted her hips, slipping the one shoulder strap off. The ruby-touched satin began to slide gently down her body. Why...?

   He quickly realized why the dress slid so easily. She was wearing a black satin strapless bra, the kind that used her body to hold up her tits. She had a tight satin sheath on under that gorgeous dress, and as the sweet gold fabric fell to the floor, she stepped out of it revealing a little red thong under the black satin strapless top.

   Spike wondered if he was drooling. His mouth hung open, anyway. As Buffy moved and writhed and slowly rolled her silk stockings down her legs, Spike wondered if one actually  _ could _ dust from continually thwarted desire. No, he decided. Nope, if it were possible he’d probably have dusted back in Sunnydale just after he’d realized how bad he had it for her, but  _ damn! _

   As Buffy did a zippy little cartwheel in her underwear, causing one of her nipples to peek coquettishly over the edge of the strapless bra, Spike groaned loud and tried like hell to yank the handcuffs from the wall. He only succeeded in hurting his wrists. Dumb pain did not help his desire any.

   The song ended, and Buffy sexed over to him, in only her black and red underwear. That nipple was still teasing him mercilessly. The second song started, and Buffy moved from strip tease to actual lap dance, except that Spike didn’t have a lap. That didn’t stop her from rolling her body all over him, sliding up his side, rubbing her tits against his chest, going down to her knees and rubbing herself against his straining, screaming, starving cock. Then she kicked one leg up and slipped it around his neck and shoulders and then — god damn slayer, showing off her stupid athletic ability, he should rip her a new one and fuck it to bits! — she sat up on his shoulders, rubbing her barely satin clothed pussy over his face.

   “Fuck!”

   She smelled delectable. He was so aroused, so annoyed, and yeah, he’d been careful to take a few quarts of blood that morning, but Buffy’s scent was so perfect he felt ravenous, he was half tempted to vamp up and bite her sweet little tormenting pussy right then. But then Buffy braced herself, touched the handcuffs, and muttered, “Release.”

   Before he’d even heard it properly, Buffy had launched herself off the wall and off his shoulders, and had landed catlike in the center of the room in a sideways lunge, one leg out to the side, the other curled up beneath her. It was a stance that was utterly useless for fighting, but fuck did it look hot. 

   Spike leaped at her, and fell flat on his face, because he’d forgotten his trousers were still around his ankles. Buffy’s gleeful, wicked laughter was enough to stoke those fires of irritation again, and he hitched up his pants with a growl, knowing it was going to be too hard taking them off over his boots. 

   “You are  _ so _ going to get it,” he growled. Uh-oh, that was quite the growl, had he vamped up? Bollocks. He wasn’t in control enough. That meant he couldn’t even play bite her, that wasn’t something you did while out of control. Still — he jumped, and she dodged, and hid behind the screen where the bed was waiting. Didn’t mean he couldn’t go hunting.

   Buffy was fast. He knew on his game he was faster — barely — while she was notably stronger, and her instincts were better. He made a pass for the side of the screen. Buffy squealed — half laughing — and went for the other side, but he’d expected that, and was already there when she got there. He just missed her hair, which she’d let down in the middle of her strip tease, and she dodged under his elbow and back out in the middle of the floor. “Here, pussy,” Buffy teased, making a little come-on gesture. “Come and get the cream, pussy!”

    The bad dog in him growled again, but again she was gone before he got there. This time she’d jumped to the ceiling. There was a wooden ladder bracketed up there, for use in exercise, monkey-bars and the like. Buffy swung like an orangutan, wedged her feet, and hung by them like a spider, taunting Spike. Both her nipples were teasing out of her bra, now. “Ah-ah, can’t catch me that easy.”

   Spike launched himself at her. She grabbed his arms like a trapeze artist and flung him against the painted cinder block wall. Some of the flowers he’d used to decorate the dojo were torn down as he slid to the floor. This woman was going to drive him insane. She grinned over at him from her inverted position, bent, grabbed the ladder with her right hand, and flipped over, hanging from one arm like a monkey. “Bad luck?” she taunted.

   He roared, leaped, and this time he caught her. He didn’t know if she’d meant him to or not, and didn’t care, he had her, his arms around her warmth, the scent from her hair, from her skin, wrapped firmly around her strong little body. They rolled and rolled, until he had her beneath him, and then he just held her, breathing hard, not biting her, carefully not biting her, didn’t dare in the state he was in. Just holding her, catching her, having her, that was going to have to be good enough, and it was. He had her.

   After a few moments, Buffy caressed the back of his head. “Did I push too far?” she asked quietly.

   Spike glared down at her through yellow eyes. “Yes, damn you,” he growled at her.

   “Sorry,” she said softly, sounding only a little sorry, very amused, and incredibly fond. “It’s all right,” she said. “You’ve got me, now.”

   The truth of that bled through him as if he’d actually started feeding. He did. He had her, she was his now. The reality of it settled somewhere in his core, and his fangs went down as he stared at her in wonder. “I do,” he whispered.

   Buffy smiled warmly beneath him, and gave him a little squeeze. “So do I.”


	9. Consummation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blood-Play

 

 

 

  

   Spike was calmer now, but he still knew what he wanted. “Mine,” he whispered at her, voice low. “You’re mine.”

   Buffy was still grinning up at him. “ _You’re_ mine,” she taunted.

   “Yeah,” he said, with absolute agreement. “I am.” He sat up on his knees, grabbed Buffy bodily, and threw her over his shoulder like a cave man claiming his mate. Buffy squealed, but it was mostly laughter. She slapped his ass as he carried her brutishly to the bed and tossed her down into it. She started to sit up but he joined her, and pushed her gently but firmly back on the bed. “I had my own plans for tonight, love,” he said. “I seem to remember this being a bit of a special day.”

   “Day fourteen,” Buffy agreed coyly.

   Day fourteen. The day in the absolute middle of her cycle, when her hormones were high, her senses were more aroused, and her scent was positively intoxicating. She tasted sweeter, more potent, more alive, more _woman_. They’d realized early on they couldn’t indulge in real blood play as often as either of them sort of wanted to. It was addicting, on both sides, and very dangerous for Buffy, so they kept quite strictly to their once-a-month policy. Buffy’s was the only human blood Spike tasted anymore. And Spike, of course, was the only vampire she trusted to bite her.

   He ran his fingers down her arm and lifted her hand to his lips. He kissed it softly, then lifted his eyes to hers, still nuzzling the backs of her fingers. “I had a little present for you,” he said. “But I need you to agree to it, first.”

   “Oh?” Buffy raised an eyebrow. There were very few things they hadn’t already done in bed.

   He slid his leg over hers and held her, speaking intimately into her face. “You like the bite, yeah?”

   Buffy was a little ashamed of how much she liked being bitten; it was very naughty of her as a slayer, and she knew it, and unfortunately that was also part of the draw. Her voice was small as she said, “Yeah.”

   “You like it when I take you deep,” he whispered, caressing her throat with his lips. “How it makes your throat numb and your body tingle?”

   She nodded.

   He swallowed. “You want that all over? Me to take you deep, deeper than you’ve ever gone before?”

   “How? I mean... we’ve talked about it... but too much... I mean....”

   Losing too much blood would still kill her, and neither of them wanted her to suffer a lifetime of terrible scarring. Even with slayer healing, too many vampire bites would have an effect, and he didn’t want to cause serious tissue damage. He kept the bites on her throat narrow, only tiny puncture marks, and they treated them meticulously. Even so, if anyone examined her neck closely, they’d probably see the signs of his repeated adoration. Tiny white dots that looked like reverse freckles. Buffy said they were worth it, for what day fourteen meant to both of them.

   “I know,” he said. “Will you trust me for a moment?”

   “Uh... a lifetime,” Buffy said. “I thought that was what this was all about.” She gestured with one finger at the decorated, candle bedecked dojo.

   Spike nodded. “Close your eyes?”

   Buffy drew in a gentle breath, and let her eyes close. Spike took the things he’d prepared out of the drawer in the bedside table.

   “This might hurt a little.”

   “Only a little?” Buffy teased.

   “Only a little,” he said, and then started to kiss Buffy’s wrist. He licked at her, nibbled at her, made her hum with the sensual nature of his ministrations. This was how he usually prepared a site for a bite. Then he took the x-acto knife he’d prepared out of the alcohol solution, shook it off, and gently, very lightly, sliced a narrow gash in Buffy’s wrist, avoiding any veins or tendons. Before she even had time to gasp at the tiny pain, Spike had brought the wrist to his mouth again, and was sucking at the blood, feeding back his demonic venom. The pain was killed almost instantly, and after a moment Buffy went, “Oh!” and opened her eyes.

   “That wasn’t a bite,” she said, her voice deep.

   Spike shook his head, letting her wrist fall away from his mouth. Buffy looked at the tiny cut, and Spike showed her the blade. “You okay with this?”

   Buffy considered it. “I’d kinda miss the bite,” she admitted, but her eyes were dilated, and her excitement was palpable.

   “I figured that would be the last step,” Spike said. “Wouldn’t get enough from this to send you real deep, anyhow... but....”

   “You know not to cut wrong?”

   Spike didn’t address the reasons why he knew the places not to cut, if he didn’t want to cause lasting damage. “Yeah,” he said. “Do you trust me?”

   She looked away from him, biting her lip. Then she noticed something. The bed was at a bit of an angle, it was half on, half off a riser that was at the end of the dojo, so the teacher could be a little higher than the students, so they could see demonstrations better. This meant she was staring at the mirrors on the far end of the wall. Just herself, disheveled and wanton on a white bed.

   Who the hell was she kidding?

   She tilted her head back. “Oh, god,” she whispered, more to herself than to him.

   “Forget it,” Spike said, sounding slightly embarrassed. “Stupid idea.”

   “No,” Buffy said. She looked right at him. “Is it too damn hokey to say, ‘Take me, I’m yours?’”

   The look of nervous joy on Spike’s face was enough to be a gift all on its own. “Just say yes.”

   “Yes.” Buffy sat up and kissed him, caressing his smooth cheek, licking gently at his lips. “Yes, yes, do it.”

   “Could be dangerous.”

   She leaned her forehead against his and closed her eyes. “Good.”

   Spike tilted his head a little so he could whisper in her ear. “It also involves chains.”

   Chills ran up Buffy’s spine. She had just married a besouled vampire, who knew how to be evil, and only wanted her to feel good. She shuddered. “Even better.”

   Spike nibbled on her earlobe and then moved her back on the bed so he could pull off the white comforter. Underneath were fluffy red sheets (they’d tried satin in the past. Satin was actually terrible to sleep in, you ended up sliding to the foot of the bed in the night) that would not show a stain, as well as the aforementioned chains, all ready for her.

   “You really have been planning this for a while.”

   “Ever since you said you liked going deep.” Spike lifted the strapless bra over her head. “Been racking my brains to figure out how without hurting you. Well, more than....”

   “Necessary,” Buffy said.

   “Yeah.” He deftly eased her out of her red satin panties. There she was, naked, glorious, glowing golden in the candlelight. “God,” he said once he had her. “I love you.”

   Buffy ran her fingers up the seam of his leather coat. “Your turn.”

   Spike grinned and slid his shirt and coat off his back, revealing his strong musculature. “This what you want?”

   “Always,” Buffy said. For a brief moment they regarded each other, and then Buffy leaned forward and hugged him, warm against cool, life against death; they held each other gently for a long moment. It was real. They were together. Then Buffy leaned back against the pillows. “Well, what are you waiting for, bad boy?”

   Spike licked his teeth, and pulled out the chains, attaching the first one deftly around her forearm. They only clipped on, and could be quickly undone if she asked. They were tight, the chains, holding her still, keeping her quite immobilized. “Don’t want you to jump and cut wrong,” he said gently. Once he had her spread eagled on the bed, he had to stop for a moment. “My god,” he said. He closed his eyes for a moment.

   “What?”

   “I just can’t believe... I can’t believe this,” he said. “You’re amazing.”

   “I thought you were about to show me how amazing you could be.”

   “Gonna try,” he said.

   Buffy lay back and let the vampire work on her. It was a breathtaking series of sensations, pain, numbness, pleasure, pain, numbness, pleasure, over and over again as he made cut after cut, all of them shallow, short, barely even paper cuts that her own slayer healing would likely knit together before the night was out, but oh, he knew where to put them. He started with hands, gently puncturing and licking on each of her fingers, then moving to her wrists, one, then the other, then up her arms, the inside of her elbows, the gentle pain tickling and softening through her skin as he took single droplets of blood, feeding back his own power to make her moan.

   A sip. A taste. A thimbleful at a time. Spike was in complete control, holding back on the demon inside that told him, _just bite already_! This wasn’t about him. It was about her. But oh, what it was doing for him. When he’d finished with her arms he gently touched around her collarbone, then ever so gently nicked the areola of her breasts. He left the nipples unscathed, but couldn’t help but kiss them each hello as he passed. Down her taut belly, licking droplets of blood from her hips, her thighs, the backs of her knees. Pinpricks down her ankles, as she hummed and whimpered and flinched, the pain heightening her pleasure, her taste carrying him back through all those years of sin, turning the blood into something pure.

   Spike was sucking on her toes when suddenly Buffy laughed. “I’m all numb,” she said, her voice shaky.

   “That was the plan,” Spike said. He surveyed her. He’d tended and suckled on each little cut until the bleeding had stopped. You could barely tell her perfect skin had been breached. Only a few of the narrow paper cut slices still let out tiny pinprick drops of blood, so she looked as if she’d been studded with rubies. Spike slid off his trousers and passed over her, catching each little ruby on his tongue as he kissed up her body. She had never looked more beautiful. He had never wanted her more.

   He stopped at her unmarked pussy. She had made it almost hairless and pristine for him, for the wedding night. Just a little V to remind him she was a woman. He dipped his tongue into the sweet, hairless folds of her, and tasted the rest of her. From her blood to her sex, Spike had never tasted anything that seemed more like ambrosia. Even being turned, even changing from a man into a vampire, the blood had never transformed him more than the taste of Buffy always could. It evaporated his words, swallowed up his self, made him into a being transcendent. Even when she was broken and hurting him, even when she couldn’t admit she loved him, the taste of her took him beyond any pain even she could inflict. She’d always been worth charging through the darkest depths of hell.

   Buffy moaned as he made her come, her whole body reduced to just this one knot of pleasure, the sensation of floating away on pure ecstasy. He couldn’t keep it back anymore. Her taste still on his tongue, he surged over her, planting himself firmly inside her wetness, filling her slowly, completely, making himself one with her.

   “Spike....”

   Now. _Now_ he could do it. He let his fangs go — he’d been keeping them more tightly chained than even Buffy was now — and sank them into her throat without bothering to prepare the site first. She screamed, the chains rattling. He paused, waiting for the safeword, but it did not pass her lips, so he bit harder, and her scream turned into a gasping moan. The chains were no match for slayer strength. One of them broke as she strained, and her hand clutched at the back of his head, driving him more deeply into her flesh as she clung to him.

   Pain as pleasure. Pleasure as pain. They always knew how to walk the line between them, him and her.

   He kept the pain at the threshold of her endurance, fucking her steadily, his teeth embedded in her throat, and her moan became a whimper, and the whimper a whine, and he could feel it building, almost there... he let the pain fade, licking it away, and as if that had been a signal, Buffy screamed again, this time as another orgasm shook her. He slowed his thrusts as Buffy’s scream faded to “Oh”s and gasps, and then… then he took her even deeper. He’d danced his self into her body. Now to send it deep into her heart.

   Buffy was numb, and she wasn’t. She was in pain and in pleasure, in heaven and hell, in herself, and in Spike, Spike, her own, her vampire man, who she trusted with her very life as he danced with it above her. The last orgasm softened her, made her relax within her bonds. She was a goddess, kneeling at the feet of evil, and the very act of her submission vanquished it.

   Spike thrust and moaned over her, building within her now that she had succumbed completely. He gasped his finish into her throat, trembling as it ended, almost in tears with the power and the beauty of the moment. But he wasn’t finished yet. He had one more thing left to give her.

   “You still there?” he asked her. He wasn’t trying to put her out, he didn’t think he’d given her that much, even if it was pervasive through her whole body tonight.

   Buffy’s eyes flickered open. “Yes.”

   Spike reached up and unlatched the hand that hadn’t broken the chain. Her arms went tight around him. “Listen closely.” He whispered the poem into her ear. He was too self-conscious to dare look into her eyes as he said it.

 

_Unattainable, you called it. A shining star, a prize,_

_Untouchable, unknowable, a goddess high above._

_I never could see clearly, through the fog around my eyes,_

_But you I saw, and you alone could show me how to love._

_I once thought love was passion, heat and blood and death and pain_

_Thought it gnawed us and consumed us til we’d burn._

_Then, surprise, the fog was lifted, and then I found you again,_

_And I lost all of the lessons I had learned._

_Love is not beyond our reach, love is not the words we preach_

_Love is not the epic fairy tale romances._

_Love’s the moments in between, all the things we’d never seen_

_‘Ere we caught that silent peace between the dances._

_Love’s all we are, and all we’ll ever be._

_My love is what you’ll always be to me._

 

   Spike closed his eyes and cringed. “It’s... I... I didn’t have time to check the meter. And the rhyme scheme is sloppy, and... it’s just you asked for one, and....” He felt really awkward. Finally he looked down on her.

   Buffy’s eyes glittered. She usually laughed at his poetry. She wasn’t laughing.

   “They’re only words. If you don’t like it....”

   “That was beautiful.”

   He smiled. “It is what it is.”

   “I loved it. I love _you_ ,” she insisted.

   Oh, god, she was really under it, wasn’t she. He should always get her zoned on the bite before he read her his poetry. “If you enjoyed it, that’s all that matters.” He sat up, pulling away from her.

     “No...!” she whimpered.

   “Just a tick, love.” He unlatched her ankles, and let all the chains fall from the bed with a musical clink, then he pulled the cloud white covers back up over the two of them. She sighed with relief as he pulled her back into his arms.

   It was such a relief to be back with him, as if he’d been gone for an age rather than a few seconds. She snuggled in tight to him, desperate to be as close as possible. It felt wrong, unnatural, even, that she wasn’t somehow inside him.

   Spike held her warmly, as always when they’d done these blood games, a mischievous and indulgent smile tickling the corners of his mouth, his eyes shining with love. He knew it was the bite. He knew it was something induced by his venom. But he also knew Buffy would be fighting it off if she didn’t love him, and it was too instinctive, that feeling of ownership after the bite. For these brief moments, they both knew she was completely his.

   But something seemed slightly wrong this time. This was the first time he’d taken her this deep, at least quite like this, and she wouldn’t settle. She kept trying the snuggle in closer, whimpering slightly in the back of her throat. “Hey,” he said, smoothing back her hair. “You okay?”

   “I can’t get close enough,” she whimpered.

   Spike chuckled low and tangled his legs with hers even more. “I’m right here, love. Not going away.”

   “I want to be inside you.”

   Spike squeezed her. “You already are.”

   “Not... I don’t....” She sobbed. “Still not close enough.”

   He knew what she needed. It wasn’t dangerous, he hadn’t taken near enough blood for it to be dangerous, but he also knew in her own right mind she might find the whole thing disgusting. But now she was actually crying, and dammit, he wanted this night to be perfect, not lost in a fruitless desperation. He kissed her tears away, concerned.

   Fuck it, he couldn’t stand this. She could bitch him out in the morning if it bothered her. “You can be,” he whispered. Reaching behind her — still keeping her in his arms, because he knew she’d panic if he let go at this stage — he took the little blade from the bedside table and deftly cut his middle finger. Curling her sweetly against his chest he held the finger to her lips. “I’m right here.”

   Buffy looked at the droplet of blood shining in the candlelight. Her eyes locked on his, and for a second Spike wondered if he’d miscalculated. Then, still staring deeply into him, Buffy opened her mouth, and ran her warm tongue over the wound.

   Spike moaned softly. He always loved it when she sucked on his fingers, and this was more than just that. The desperate whimpers and the attempts to pull herself closer stopped instantly, and Buffy sighed through her nose and closed her eyes, her body relaxing as she tasted the demonic blood.

  _Heat and racing and the thrill of the hunt, the lust of the chase, the pounding of the blood in her ears. The heavy thrust, thrust, thrust of making love, and the trickle of laughter, sprinkling like pixie dust. A heavy, unbreakable chain, bound in the darkness, and the light of a single candle, beating back the night. The pale moonlight on pale, supple skin, the rush of air past her ears, jumping from shadow to shadow, dancing with the sunlight, taking up the past and swallowing it like wine, boom, boom, boom as the rhythm took her body, as the heartbeat caught her, as the strength caught her, as the pain and the pleasure and the peace, they all caught her up at once._

_Sun and moon. Light and dark. Hot and cold. Love and hate. Guilt and forgiveness. They were all one, twisted together, neither complete without the other._

   Buffy’s eyes popped open. Spike was gazing at her, looking kind of nervous, but everything was very clear to her just then. Maybe this was what Dracula had intended, when he’d tried this little trick under thrall, to make things clear to her. It had worked then, though not in the way he’d expected. She’d known she was the slayer, and his half-rate seduction under mystic hypnosis was dumb and a little gross, and she’d seen him off with extreme prejudice.

   This time, however, the clarity told her something else.

   “You are me,” she said softly.

   That wasn’t exactly what she meant, but there weren’t any words for what she was trying to say. He was in her as much as she was in him. Not the blood, that was just pain/pleasure games, symbolic more than anything else. But they were entwined. Yin and Yang, maybe. The light in the darkness and the darkness in the light, twisted together to make a whole. It wasn’t that she wasn’t complete without him. It was that even when she was without him, she was with him. He was part of her. She’d tasted him, swallowed him down, and not just the blood. She’d embraced his soul, his essence, his self, and made him part of her, as he’d made her part of him, and they were both the stronger for it.

   That was it. Even if it all ended tomorrow, he was part of her, and she was the stronger for him. And the same was true for him.

   No one else had ever given her that kind of strength. Buffy had always been afraid of losing people. Her father, Angel, Riley, they’d taken parts of her, cut her more deeply and more painfully than that little blade could begin to; they’d left her bruised, broken, battered, frightened and confused, lost and alone. Their love (and yes, there had been love, in some form, for all of them) had only served to make her weaker in the end, and when they had gone they’d left gaping wounds that she had to suffer through and heal over. She had scars from what they’d all done to her. Their love had meant only pain.

   But Spike. Spike had only made her stronger. Even when she’d been without him she’d carried him inside. His faith in her, his trust, his honor (because even in his hatred at the beginning he had honored her). Spike had made himself part of her forever, and made her the better for it.

   There was a part of their vows which Buffy hadn’t had a chance to say. She hadn’t missed it. She hadn’t been sure she’d have the courage to repeat this in front of everybody, anyway, but she’d been determined to try. It went better now. “I love what you are,” she whispered to him. “What you do. How you try. I’ve seen your kindness, and your strength. I’ve seen the best and the worst of you, and I understand with perfect clarity exactly what you are.” She caressed Spike’s cheek. “You’re the one.”

   Spike smiled. “You remember all that?”

   She nodded. “Always.”

   Spike fondled her hair. “You know what I remember?” he asked. “You faced the monster inside, and you fought back,” he whispered. “You risked everything to be better. And you can be. You may not see it, but I do. I do.” He whispered the last words in her ear. “I believe in you.”

   She shifted her head, and they fell into a kiss, as if they’d never done anything else.

   Buffy was content in his arms now, happy, sleepy, emotionally drained. She was no longer afraid that Spike might disappear somehow, or that the whole thing might blow up in their faces. There was still the same remote possibility that he might be taken from her (they lived violent and unpredictable lives) but now it no longer mattered if he was. She knew he was inside her, and would be forever. And that soul... they’d find each other again if something happened. She was sure of it now.

   She was sure of him.

   When the next day came, they’d get up, make love in the showers in the locker room, eat wedding cake for breakfast, make plans for the dojo, for training, for their lives together. They’d laugh and tease and ease back into their familiar patterns. Really nothing had changed just because some official folder in the State of California now held a piece of paper that stated William Pratt and Buffy Summers were married. They were no more or less Spike and Buffy than they had been before they were husband and wife. Their love was no greater, and no less.

   But they had gone through the motions, declared themselves to the public, and it was unmistakable. They were stronger together, and they had made it this far, together. They’d made it. Love and life, it was all one.

   It wasn’t unattainable anymore.

   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The sonnet is mine. Thank the gods that, per-Spike canon, it doesn't have to be any good. Thank you again to ZabJade and bewildered for betaing this beastie, and to those who inspired it, and to all of you for reading it.
> 
> Remind me never to write fluff again! Any fluff writers out there, I do honor thee! This stuff's HARD!
> 
> THAT'S IT! HAPPY EVER AFTER! THE END!


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